AW: Food of my People

Emil Lazarian 2023

 Matthew Kibarian Poetry 0

Armenian refugee woman and child receiving food relief, American Committee for Relief in the Near East (Wikimedia Commons)

Cracked wheat,

Ground beef,

Onions, peppers, tomatoes.

Food from the old country.

Food of my people.

Farmers, merchants, textile artists

Fight oppression for 1,500 years.

Forced out in 1915

Bringing the food with them.

Growing up in the Depression

They still found ways

To preserve our heritage

Through church,

And through food.

Now that we are

Under attack again

I try to continue

To keep attached

To my roots

So I can say

With pride

“Ես հայ եմ”

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Matthew Kibarian, a member of the Providence Kibarian family, is a native of Silicon Valley and currently a junior in high school. He is a graduate of the Anahid Nalvarian Armenian School at his home church of St. Andrew’s in Cupertino, California.


Emil Lazarian

“I should like to see any power of the world destroy this race, this small tribe of unimportant people, whose wars have all been fought and lost, whose structures have crumbled, literature is unread, music is unheard, and prayers are no more answered. Go ahead, destroy Armenia . See if you can do it. Send them into the desert without bread or water. Burn their homes and churches. Then see if they will not laugh, sing and pray again. For when two of them meet anywhere in the world, see if they will not create a New Armenia.” - WS