ARMENIAN CULTURAL CONSERVANCY

Fresno, California

Assimilation into American society does not, and should not, require obliteration of original ethnicity.  Culture and tradition are desirable contributors to human study, understanding, and enjoyment.  They enrich life.  Loss can be irretrievable, but the loss is never inevitable.

With this in mind, Heritage Fresno, a local preservation organization, first undertook to create an Armenian Cultural Conservancy to serve as an institutional vessel.  It is to become the depository for all things Armenian, so that objects, letters, diaries, photographs, recipes, relics, music, history and lore can be safely concentrated for enjoyment, study, and preservation for the future.

The Armenian-American contribution to the life of California has been profound, and Armenian cultural conservation efforts have appeared in Glendale and Mission Hills.  Moreover, the Armenian Museum of America in the Boston suburb of Watertown, Massachusetts, has done much to preserve and interpret such material on the East Coast.

But historically, Fresno was the west-coast hub for Armenian immigration.  Subsequent deployment to Los Angeles and the Bay Area left nearly all  Armenian families with a connection of some sort to this city.

Fresno’s Armenian Cultural Conservancy will be the hub of a national network connecting all west-coast Armenian institutions into a seamless whole.

Support the Armenian Cultural Conservancy by making gifts of time, treasure, effort, energy and cash. We can, and will, enrich the future by preserving the past and cultural components of the Armenian experience.

Charles Barrett

Fresno, February 2016

armenianconservancy@gmail.com