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The Armenian Weekly; Volume 74, No. 8; March 1, 2008
AYF Section:
1. The Strength of Youth in This Election Season
2. AYF Alumni Spotlight: Mark Alashaian
3. CJC Update: February 2008
By Phil Nigon
***
1. The Strength of Youth in This Election Season
For anyone who doubted the strength of youth in politics, the Barack Obama
campaign has once again demonstrated that young people have the power to
play a deciding factor in bringing about change. More than any other
politician in recent memory, the Obama campaign has captured the enthusiasm
and involvement of young people, carrying the Senator from Illinois to one
primary victory after another.
Even before the official primary campaigning began, students and youth from
across the country mobilized around Obama. They saw in him someone with
genuine progressive credentials and the ability to offer an alternative to
the status quo of American politics. Without the manipulation of political
strategists, young people throughout the country came together in Facebook
groups, student clubs, and local organizations to raise money and campaign
for Obama’s presidential bid.
Immediately, we saw the results of this mobilization in Iowa, where Obama
surprised many analysts by winning the first caucuses in the nation. On
Super Tuesday, we once again saw turnout from young people far surpassing
the levels seen in 2000 or 2004, sometimes even tripling and quadrupling in
numbers. In states such as Missouri, where Obama won with just 10,000 votes,
the 75,000 young people who went to the polls played a decisive role in
putting him over the edge. What became clear was that students and young
people were coming out to the polls in record numbers this primary season
and changing the face of the U.S. presidential race.
Following the ANCA’s endorsement of Obama, Armenian-American youth also
increasingly joined the push for an Obama victory in 2008. AYF members from
California all the way to New York have volunteered for his campaign and
gotten active with "Armenians for Obama" groups in their local communities.
In this way, young Armenian activists are playing a significant role in a
presidential campaign that has, in many ways, taken on the life of a
grassroots movement.
With Obama’s momentum steadily increasing and important primaries coming up
in states such as Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Ohio and Texas, it is more
important than ever for young people to take part in the "Armenians for
Obama" effort in their respective areas. Phone banking drives, campus
events, fundraisers and rallies in support of the ANCA endorsed candidate
can play a pivotal role in who is the next person that sits in the White
House. It is crucial for Armenian-American youth to further organize and get
involved the political process, not only in the remaining primaries but all
the way to the November elections.
It is time to harness our strength as young activists and have our voices
heard loud and clear in the American political arena.
For more information about the "Armenians for Obama" campaign and how you
can get involved, visit or contact your local ANCA
regional office.
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2. AYF Alumni Spotlight: Mark Alashaian
As a child, Mark Alashaian remembers wondering what his older friends were
doing when they went behind closed doors for AYF meetings. He was intrigued
by the mystery of it all and frustrated when they told him he was not yet
old enough to join them. Finally, when he turned 10 years old, Mark’s
parents allowed him to become part of the AYF Hyortik Juniors. From then on,
he became one of the most active members of his generation and demonstrated
an unrelenting devotion to the Armenian community.
In addition to holding executive positions in the New York "Hyortik,"
Watertown "Gaidzag" and New Jersey "Arsen" chapters, Alashaian was also
elected to the 1992 AYF Central Executive and served on various Central
Councils throughout his years as an AYF senior.
As a long-time member of the AYF Central Athletic Council, Mark was
instrumental in formalizing what became known as the National Athletic
Tournament (NAT’s) in 1987, when he worked with fellow members of the
Council to bring all the chapters in the eastern region together in one city
for an official competition similar to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.
They promoted it as "The Road to Racine," given the fact that it was hosted
by the Racine AYF, and, in addition to basketball, the featured volleyball,
bowling and a finals dance. It was a tremendous success and NAT’s quickly
became one of the most anticipated annual events of the AYF.
Another major project Alashaian worked on was the 1990 Senior Olympics in
New Jersey. He was 25 years old at the time and remembers his service on the
steering committee being one of the most demanding yet memorable experiences
of his AYF career. Interestingly enough, Alashaian recently got a chance to
relive these memories when he helped organize last year’s Olympics as a
co-chair of the New Jersey AYF-YOARF Olympics Committee. The AYF decided to
honor Mark for all of his contributions to the weekend and to the
organization by naming him "king" of the 2007 festivities.
When asked to compare his view of the Olympics today to that of the past,
Alashaian sums up the importance of this renowned event by stating,
"Activities have changed a little bit but it’s still about bringing Armenian
youth together, educating them, letting them get to know each other, having
them participate in different types of events together and helping them
grow."
Although Alashaian has given a great deal to the AYF and continues his
contributions through his past 10 years of service on the Olympics Governing
Body, his involvement in the New Jersey Dro Gomideh and his position as
chairman of the Camp Haiastan Board of Directors, he feels that he would
never be able to fully repay the organization for all that it has given him.
"You couldn’t put a price on what the AYF did for me and what it still
continues to do today," he insists with a sober tone. Some of the things
Mark credits the AYF for giving him include a greater understanding of
Armenian identity, life-long friends and relationships, and the ability to
work effectively with others.
Today, Alashaian even utilizes some of his AYF experiences in his
professional field. He currently serves as the vice president/branch manager
for Starpoint Solutions, a software development company with offices
nationwide, and believes that being on committees in the AYF gave him "a leg
up" over others in the business world by teaching him important people
skills at a very young age. "When you’re a volunteer in an organization like
the AYF, you interface and deal with all different kinds of people from
different backgrounds and frames of reference," says Alashaian. "It teaches
you to be tolerant, to listen and work with people."
As a father of two, one of whom is nine and will soon begin the same journey
his father began over 30 years ago, Alashaian goes out of his way to implore
other parents to not only get their kids involved in the AYF, but to be a
part of it, too. "It’s important for your children to realize that this is
something that you support, something you believe in and something that you
take seriously," he explains. Speaking about his own children, Alashaian
says, "I can only hope that my kids have half the experiences I’ve had
because, if they do, they will have been lucky enough to gain a lifetime of
wonderful memories and invaluable experiences."
In the process, our community will be lucky enough to gain another dedicated
generation of Alashaians into the ranks of the AYF.
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3. CJC Update: February 2008
By Phil Nigon
It seems like only yesterday that we were all celebrating the New Year with
a sense of hope for the fresh start 2008 would provide. Imagine my surprise
when I woke up one morning, looked at my calendar and realized it was
already February. Last year, the AYF Central Junior Council (CJC) held the
Junior Winter Olympics-all of them-during the last weekend in February, a
mistake we soon regretted once the weather had its say. New England,
ironically, was the most successful at avoiding the bad weather, while both
the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest games were battered with ice storms, which
forced us to end the events early.
We learned from 2007, and this year with Easter so early and the change in
format of the Junior Educational Weekend, we have decided to push the Junior
Winter Olympics back to the end of March or beginning of April timeframe.
This should make everyone’s life easier. It will give junior chapters more
time to arrange transportation; host chapters will also have more time to
plan; and parents will find some solace in knowing that there are relatively
few winter storms in the spring.
At this time, the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest regions have both scheduled their
games for April 5th weekend, in New Jersey and Racine, respectively.
New England is still working through a few issues, which should be resolved
by the time this newspaper arrives at your home.
I want to take this opportunity to write about the page on which this
article is printed. The observant reader will notice that along the top
there is a banner that reads "The Voice of the Armenian Youth
Federation-YOARF, Eastern USA." Within the organization, this page is called
the "Junior Page" because its primary purpose is to act as a forum for AYF
juniors to express their opinions or share their essays, poems or other
creative work with the Armenian community of the eastern region.
I want to go back to the Jan. 12th issue of the Weekly, where my last
installment of this series was published on the AYF page. You can read that
if you’d like, but if you only read one article in one newspaper this year,
make it the one next to mine on page 15, titled "Midwest Junior Convention:
A Step into the Future" by Armen Changelian, a Detroit junior. Seriously. Go
find that issue in your magazine rack, and if you don’t have it handy, then
shame on you. Contact the Hairenik Association about ordering a back issue
so you can read it.
The first time I saw Armen’s article and glanced over the opening
paragraphs, I thought it was written by a parent, or at least an AYF senior.
I passed right by it and skimmed the rest of the page, then noticed the
italics at the end, informing me that the author was, in fact, a junior.
Naturally, I double-checked this new fact against our rosters and confirmed
that Armen is 16 and, until March, a junior. His article is superbly
well-written, thoughtful, concise and stands as a shining example of what
should be on this page every week.
"Should" is the operative word here. Regular readers of the Weekly know that
too often, the AYF page is covered with advertisements, ANCA information or
continuations of articles from earlier in the paper that were too long to
fit in the desired layout. Now, I respect that the Weekly enjoys its ad
revenue, that the ANCA is important, and that certain weeks, Garen Yegparian
or Tom Vartabedian really go on a tear and need the extra space. But when I
see the AYF page devoid of its intended content, I start to wonder if the
AYF is losing that voice given to us by editors past. [Editor’s Note: To
rejuvenate the AYF Page, the Weekly added Serouj Aprahamian to its staff
earlier this month as AYF Page editor.
The Junior Page has been an institution within the AYF for as long as I can
remember, but in recent years, contributions by juniors have been few and
far between. Around April, the CJC sees a pile of genocide-related work come
in, but I feel that this is likely caused by the annual article contest at
Junior Seminar in May, not the accessibility of the subject matter. So what
happened to the day when an AYF junior would attend a community event,
participate in an AYF meeting, play a sport, etc., then decide to tell
people about it by writing a few paragraphs in the Armenian Weekly (or the
Hairenik)?
The fact is that today, juniors have numerous other, faster, more direct
ways of self-expression to satisfy this need than they had previously.
Between e-mail, cell phones, text messaging, Facebook and MySpace, AYF
members can reach their friends more quickly than ever before. Whether or
not these new technologies will spell the end of the printed word is not
something I want to discuss here, as it has already been well-argued by
smarter people than me on both sides. I do, however, want to let everyone
know that the AYF is not simply ignoring this shift in behavior, in the
hopes it will go away. History has shown that any group that is unable to
adapt to change inevitably fails, and we would not have lasted 75 years were
we not up to the task.
More to come next month, and just as a reminder, anyone who has any
questions, comments or article submissions for the CJC can reach us by
e-mailing [email protected].