Across many different academic disciplines this year, considering the roles that race, ethnicity, and ancestry play in society has shed light on the dangerous consequences of the marginalization of certain groups.

In recent years much media attention has been shed on the thousands of “Crypto-Armenians” in Turkey–survivors of the 1915 genocide who hid themselves within Turkish society through complete and hidden assimilation: abandoning their Armenian identities for false Turkish ones in order to protect themselves and their families from further persecution. As more people come forward about their true identities, a revelation that is still considered greatly taboo and leaves individuals vulnerable for discrimination, the persistent silence in Turkey regarding their role in the extermination of over a million Armenians a century ago is starting to be broken.

In their documentary project Turkey, The Legacy of Silence, French film makers Anna Benjamin and Guillaume Clere explore the issues of silence, identity, public memory and promoting reconciliation through profiling four Turks who have only recently discovered their Armenian origins. Benjamin relays to an Armenian newspaper that for her, the idea was born out of her desire to “restitute the memory of the Genocide in modern-day Turkey,” creating a “dialogue between the communities” that focused the issue on collective “ignorance” rather than each other. In addition to the film, the project includes an interactive website that encourages the thousands of other silenced Armenians to come forward with their stories, contextualizing their narratives with “interviews with historians, journalists and sociologists, as well as through computer graphics, interactive maps, archives and more.” It also includes a feature that helps Armenians find and connect with lost family members.

All of this resonates with me personally, as my paternal great-grandparents left Armenia for the United States to avoid persecution. While my Armenian heritage hasn’t played a very significant role in my life or sense of identity, It’s hard for me to grasp that while I could be rolling dolma with my cousins and laughing about the Armenian swear words we learned from our Grandmother that day, others were denied the knowledge of their culture and history, or taught to keep it hidden in shame and fear. 

We’ve explored how life narratives enable individuals to claim their identity through their stories, creating public memory and using their experiences to shed light on collective struggles. Our work with Schaffer and Smith’s research on how narratives have the potential to champion certain human rights initiatives resonates clearly here, for starting a dialogue through publicly reclaiming Armenian identity within Turkey is an inherently political act that can help de-stigmatize Armenian heritage and open up discussions about their current and past subjugation in Turkey; working towards a better future. 

Although it is in it’s final stages of production, due to limited resources the project has been placed on a crowd-funding site, with the goal of presenting Turkey, The Legacy of Silence in April, for Genocide Awareness month.