California History Through Armenian Experiences

Focusing on the power of the individual story, "California History Through Armenian Experiences" oral history initiative by the USC Institute of Armenian Studies documents the diversity and history of Armenian presence in California. The interviews in this collection were conducted starting in 2018 and will continue through 2024, ranging from formal oral history interviews by trained interviewers, such as the Displaced Persons Documentation Project and the Armenian-American Experiences Oral History Project, to crowd-sourced interviews through the Institute’s “My Armenian Story” project. Narrators share their stories of migration, community-building in diaspora, personal experiences of world and regional events, and their individual and collective contributions to the social and cultural fabric of California and beyond. A number of interviews also contain digitized photographs and ephemera from the narrators’ personal collections.

Displaced Persons Documentation Project

The USC Institute of Armenian Studies has been recording oral histories and gathering documents on the unique history of the Armenian displaced persons (DP) community formed during and after World War II. Many interviewees migrated to Southern California, with Montebello, California fostering a large number of diasporans eager to rebuild the connective tissues torn by war and displacement. This growing collection of oral histories and digitized documents is meant to serve as a primary source for researchers who are interested in World War II, post-Genocide Armenian history, and Diaspora Studies.

The documentation and publication of oral histories in this collection is funded, in part, by the California State Library through the “California History through Armenian Experiences” project.