LOCAL STORES WITH GLOBAL ORIGINS
By Elizabeth Marcellino
Palisadian-Post
August 13, 2008
CA
The Palisades Village has a friendly, small-town feel. But look behind
the cash register at neighborhood shops and you’ll find a cosmopolitan
mix of business owners.
Immigrants from around the world have established or bought local
shops, restaurants and service businesses and developed their own style
of entrepreneurship. Their origins are diverse, but these retailers
raise common themes in interviews about their emigration. Most left
home to seek a better life and have worked tirelessly to provide
their children with the opportunities that most Palisadians can
take for granted. Marriages that last decades are the rule, not
the exception, even for those who spend the entire working day
together. The importance of and reliance on family is crucial.
One more thing these entrepreneurs share is goodwill toward their
Palisades customers. Most went out of their way to talk about
the personal connection they have with shoppers, to offer thanks,
and to note how supportive their patrons have been during difficult
times. Irena Potashnik seemed to sum up their sentiments when she said,
‘I’m so happy to stay in this village.’
SPECIAL MOMENTS
873 Via de la Paz
>From the time she was five years old, Amelia ‘Mely’ Travostino
[Parmalee] told everyone she would never marry. Despite a lack of
interest in a wedding of her own, she started a business in bridal
design in Milan, Italy. Then, in 1973, Travostino met Tim Parmalee,
an opera tenor from the Palisades studying music in Italy, and married
him just nine months later.
‘To come to the United States for me was another world,’ says Mely,
citing Americans’ frequent moves and life changes as just one of many
cultural differences.
But Mely believes that everything that has happened in her life, no
matter how contrary to her original plans, is destiny, ‘written in
the book,’ as she said. That includes her decision in 1985 to open
Special Moments, a lingerie store with an emphasis on personal service.
Mely still maintains her family home in Lago Maggiore and usually
travels back to Italy at least once a year.
EUROPEAN SHOE REPAIR
15200 Sunset, Suite 109
The oppressive Communist economy drove Boris and Helen Papikian to
leave Armenia in 1988. Even as an orthodontist, Boris earned a salary
from the government and wasn’t free to establish a truly private
practice. With the help of his uncle, who lived in West Hollywood,
they obtained visas for themselves, their 11-year-old son, Ruben,
their eight-year-old daughter, Ripsime, and Boris’ parents.
Boris worked first with his father, a shoemaker, and later bought
European Shoe Repair on Sunset in 1992. Helen works by his side
every day and sees the payoff of their hard work in the freedom and
opportunities available to their children.
The same options are no longer open to their countrymen. ‘Before,
the Soviet Union wouldn’t let people go. Now, the U.S. won’t let
people come,’ Helen says.
The Papikians have always worked long days, but were lucky enough in
their early years to have Boris’ parents to help with the children
and the support of the local Armenian community in Glendale.
Today, even though the children are grown and married, the entire
family still gets together every Sunday. ‘It’s very important to
keep your roots and family,’ says Helen, now a grandmother to her
daughter’s 19-month-old daughter.
TAJ PALACE INDIAN CUISINE
15200 Sunset, Suite 112
A generation younger than many of their Chamber of Commerce peers,
Sukhwinder ‘Sunny’ Singh, 33, and his brother, Gurinder, 31, ‘Nick,’
have owned Taj Palace for more than five years.
Their move to the U.S. from Punjab in 1995 was orchestrated by their
parents. Their father, Joginder, came to America in the late 1970s to
earn a better living. By the time his wife and children joined him,
nearly all of their extended family were already in the U.S.
Sunny and Nick seem completely assimilated into Western culture,
until one learns that the family of seven, including their sister
and her husband, lives together in Sunny’s North Hills’ home with
his wife, Afsana.
The brothers bought the restaurant to capitalize on the fact that their
parents are both great chefs, and ‘worked non-stop,’ Sunny says. ‘I
took off five years from the plan I had for [graduate education],’
Nick says, ‘in order to make the business a success.’
EURO TAILORING AND BOUTIQUE
843 Via de la Paz
Two women from the Ukraine with no prior ties find themselves operating
adjacent businesses on Via de la Paz. Irena Potashnik owns Euro
Tailoring and Boutique, which backs up to Bella Solodkaya’s Spinning
Yarns shop.
Irena earned a living in Kiev as a costume designer. Her emigration
was motivated by family ties in America, the prospect of better
economic opportunities, and her own fears in the aftermath of the
Chernobyl disaster.
She moved with her husband and mother-in-law in 1993 and spent a year
learning English. Then she studied fashion design at Los Angeles
Trade-Technical College, adapting to Western pattern making and
design. She bought the alterations business, originally on Monument,
a decade ago.
Bella’s family tried to leave the Ukraine in 1979, but was denied. Her
job at a defense contractor may have played a part, or simply offered
the government a good excuse for rejection. Ten years later, in a very
different political climate, she and her husband reapplied and were
allowed to leave the country with their six-year-old daughter, Alex.
While Bella acknowledges that ‘the [American] dream is still a dream,’
the economic realities of her old life are hard to imagine. ‘Lines
and lines of people would wait for the chance to buy two pounds of
sugar,’ she says.
Once the family was in the U.S., Jewish organizations helped with
financial support and job placement, and Bella worked in a variety
of clerical and management roles before buying the knitting business
in 2004.
This fall, Alex, 25, will start the final year of a graduate program
in art history and museum administration at Boston University.
NATURALLY!
15200 Sunset, Suite 105
Kayvan ‘Kevin’ Kayvanjah and Fatane ‘Faith’ Dabahani are double
immigrants. In 1985, they moved to Sweden from Iran, following the
Iranian Revolution. The Swedish government granted them citizenship
quickly and many of their relatives remained, but the couple found
the Scandinavian temperatures far too frigid. In 1991, they moved
to California with their 10-year-old daughter Kiana, sponsored by
Faith’s uncle.
Because Iran was quite westernized under the shah’s rule, little was
truly foreign about U.S. culture. ‘I grew up with American movies
and TV,’ says Kevin, who watched ‘Gunsmoke’ and ‘I Spy’ in translation.
The fourth generation in a line of professionals working in corporate
and government jobs, Kevin never expected to be an entrepreneur. But
buying Naturally, a caf’ offering healthy smoothies, sandwiches and
salads, has kept Kevin and Faith busy working side-by-side six days
a week since 1992.
The ‘best thing’ about coming to the U.S.? Kiana will complete a
post-graduate degree in pharmacy science at UC San Diego next year.