InternationalRemembering December 7, 1988
The UAF takes shape
Published: Saturday November 22, 2008 in Earthquake 20 Years On
San Diego, Calif. - I haven't thought about the specific details of The Earthquake in many, many years. When I read that the Armenian Reporter was looking for people to share their stories, my brain began to churn with the dormant memories of that day as well as the days and years that followed. To say that I was at the epicenter of the earthquake would not be geographically correct, but I was definitely at a point of convergence.
The morning of December 7, I was in the office of Albert Boime, chair of the Modern Art Department at UCLA. I was a graduate student in art history, taking a seminar course from him. I was speaking to him about the final exam that I was scheduled to take the following week. This is where I first learned of the earthquake. Dr. Boime sounded alarmed by the news, and genuinely concerned because he knew that I was Armenian. I left his office and called my employer from a pay phone (remember those?); my employer was the Armenian National Committee (ANC).
Crammed into a single office on the second floor of the old brick building at 419 West Colorado in Glendale, California, was the office of the ANC Western Region. I began working there on a part-time basis in early 1987 while attending graduate school. Berdj Karapetian, the executive director of the ANC at the time, taught me all there is to know about public and media relations, grassroots advocacy, and political action. By December 1988, I was handling much of the public and media relations for the ANC.
Feeling a sense of urgency after my meeting with Dr. Boime and the phone call, I left campus and drove straight to the ANC office. What I found there was our normally quiet cave teeming with people in frenetic motion, like a troupe of whirling dervishes dancing out of sync. I was sure that the chaos in the office was rivaled only by the chaos in Armenia itself. At first, the leaders of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) and ANC assumed exclusive responsibility for earthquake response in that office. During those initial hours, there was little place in that process for 26-year-old, part-time (female) employee, but I remained vigilant.
Then the local and national media descended on us. We were unprepared for crisis management of this magnitude, but looking back, I feel we did an excellent job. Our greatest asset was the quality and adaptability of our ad hoc team. The day after the temblor was more chaotic than the first, and the pace became more feverish with each passing day. (Side note: Because I was at the ANC around the clock, I never had time to study for my modern art final. I went to Dr. Boime's office a week later and requested he waive the final, which he very kindly did.) During the initial two weeks after the quake, we ate little and slept less. I recall Apo Boghigian, the editor of Asbarez, remarking that I was looking thin. What I would give to hear that now!
In the early days of our earthquake response, I recorded every phone conversation and every meeting discussion on the pages of a large notepad. While I was still on the fringes of decision-making, I remember that at one point Dr. Rubina Peroomian came to me and asked a question. She realized that in this madness I had been collecting a databank of information and, in my own quiet way, was the primary contact with the office of the governor of California, George Deukmejian. After that, I remember collaborating closely with Rubina (who could utilize my information in the larger scheme of things), and my notepad never left my side.
It's important to remember that, at the time of the earthquake, Armenia was still part of the Soviet Union. Its isolation from the outside world made communication to and from Armenia nearly impossible. A major aspect of the massive attention given the event in the American and international media was Armenia's geopolitical status. You may recall that Tom Brokaw, an anchor for NBC News, reported from Armenia around the end of the first week. He was one of the first Western reporters to be allowed to broadcast live from a Soviet republic. When Mr. Brokaw showed that it was possible to penetrate the Iron Curtain, the global media went wild. The earthquake maintained its position as the headline story in the local and national news through Christmas, and it became a metaphor for a crumbling Soviet Union.
About two months later, the Armenian Relief Society, Western USA, formed a spin-off organization, called Earthquake Relief for Armenia (ERFA). I transitioned from the ANC to ERFA and continued to handle public and media relations for quake relief. In November 1989, I transitioned again. I helped establish the United Armenian Fund (UAF) as its first assistant director, working under Michael Mahdesian, the first executive director of the UAF. Getting the UAF on its feet as a new organization was tremendously challenging, but watching the first cargo plane lift off the tarmac in December 1989 was an emotional and proud moment that I am honored to have been a part of.
I can't say that nothing good came out of the earthquake. Without sounding insensitive, it put Armenia and the Armenians on the map. Since then, the diaspora has devoted billions of dollars and countless person-hours to the homeland. I believe that the earthquake gave shape and definition to the role that diasporan Armenians play in today's Armenia. Going back to the UAF, we should remember that it was established in response to Armenia's ongoing need for aid in the months following the temblor. The UAF was a breakthrough in relations for the Armenian-American community. Composed of six member organizations, the UAF was an uncharacteristic show of unity that helped us all see that mutual respect and cooperation between different factions could be possible. In some sense, the earthquake was not an end, but a beginning.
Fast forward to Northridge, California, in the dark hours of the morning of January 17, 1994. A new mother is hurled out of bed into darkness. The house is shaking violently, like a washing machine agitating vertically and horizontally. She bolts down the hall, stepping on broken glass and slamming into toppled furniture to grab her seven-month-old daughter out of her crib. She assumes a duck-and-cover position, shielding the baby in the doorway of the baby's bedroom. I was that new mother, and this time I was at the epicenter. For many years, my husband and I would reference things that happened "before the [Northridge] quake" and "after the [Northridge] quake," that is until 9/11, when our world was rocked to its core.
