ARMENIANS CELEBRATE CULTURE, TRADITION
By Janine Anderson

Journal Times Online, WI
June 25 2006

CALEDONIA – Since 1938, Racine’s Armenian community has gathered
together for the St. Hagop Armenian Apostolic Church’s annual picnic
to celebrate the culture they have in common.

Early Sunday morning, church members came to Johnson Park to dig a
pit and build a fire, over which they cooked beef stew and bulgar
wheat. The "Madagh," or offering, can be traced back to Abraham.

Abraham was prepared to sacrifice his son to God, but God told him to
spare the boy and sacrifice a ram instead. The Madagh is an expression
of love, faith and gratitude which St. Hagop’s shares with its members
and guests. Once the stew and bulgar is cooked, families bring smaller
pots and take the stew back to their eating area.

"That’s how the picnic starts," said Zohrab Kaligian, chairman of the
picnic committee. "People start to come with their pots and pans to
get their stew."

When people came Sunday, there were families from far-flung places
like Boston, Washington and California. The annual picnic is a time
when people who have left Racine often come back to be a part of the
community again.

Here they can enjoy sarma (stuffed grape leaves), shishkabob,
Armenian pastries, and penelee (deep-fried cheese puffs). Every
Armenian community has a pastry stuffed with cheese, Kaligian said,
but the penelee are hard to find unless you are in Racine.

Women from the church spent Father’s Day making more than 1,600
penelee. Younger men and women took their turns over the deep fryers
Sunday, cooking for the people who lined up to place orders.

"We’re doing our best to pass that on," Kaligian said. "The little
old ladies aren’t going to be around forever. We’ve got to pass it on,
generation to generation."

The band that provided music from 2 to 6 p.m. is also committed to
passing on the Armenian folk music tradition. Members of The Mid-East
Beat have been playing together since the early 1980s. Vahan Kamalian
plays the oud, a fretless stringed instrument with a rounded back. He
started playing when he was 15; the instruments were not available in
music stores, and his grandmother helped find one overseas. He and
the other members of the group taught themselves to play, listening
to old records and playing together.

"We just love the music and want to keep the tradition going of the
music and pass it on to future generations," Kamalian said. "It’s
soulful, melodic and driven, perfect for the kinds of dancing they do."

The Archbishop Oshagan Choloyan, prelate of the Armenian Apostolic
Church of America, oversees Armenian churches in the eastern half of
the United States. He was in Racine Sunday for his eighth St. Hagop
celebration. He said the Armenian church and culture are tied together
incredibly closely.

"The Armenian church officially is the oldest (national) church in
the world," he said. "We embraced Christianity in 301. It’s like
a mother for our nation. Through the church the literature, music,
art, architectures, all these cultures were kept through church. The
church and nation can’t separate."

Armenians immigrated to the United States in the first quarter of
the 20th century, Choloyan said, after Ottoman Turks killed about
1.5 million of them and drove many others into the Syrian desert.

"Wherever we established, we immediately built a church," Choloyan
said. "They kept the church alive and the church kept them alive."

Choloyan loves to come to Racine’s picnic, where the sense of community
runs deep. He said if he had been given a choice as a young man, where
he would be a priest, he would have picked Racine, and now, if he
were given a choice on where to retire, his answer would be the same.

"I love these people," he said. "You find the true American spirit
here in the countryside. It’s simple, lovely, caring. You see the
closeness. This is the America I know."