By STEVEN HERBERT
City News Service
Schools were be closed on Friday in the Los Angeles and Glendale unified school districts to commemorate Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, marking the 111th anniversary of the start of events widely viewed by scholars as the first genocide of the 20th century.
The LAUSD Board of Education adopted a policy in 2020 to close schools on Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day. Students and teachers in the Glendale Unified School District have been given the day off on April 24 since the 2013-14 school year.
A bill establishing Genocide Remembrance Day as a state holiday to be observed on April 24 and permitting public schools and community colleges to close in observance of the holiday was signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2022.
The Los Angeles area is home to the largest population of Armenians in the world outside of Armenia itself.
Multiple events were planned throughout Los Angeles County on Friday to mark Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, including at Los Angeles City Hall where the City Council conducted what a spokesman for Councilmember Adrin Nazarian called “a solemn but hopeful presentation” of a scroll to Arman Tsarukyan, who is ranked second in the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s lightweight division.
Wreaths and flowers were placed at the Armenian Genocide Memorial in Memorial Park in Pasadena. Speakers included retired U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Mark MacCarley, the chair of the American Armenian National Security Institute, which seeks to educate congressional, military and civilian national security decision-makers on American and Armenian defense and strategic interests.
The Armenian Youth Federation held a march in the afternoon, from La Cienega Park in Beverly Hills to the Turkish Consulate General on Wilshire Boulevard.
Later in the evening, the Truth And Accountability League planned to conduct a public commemoration at the Glendale Central Library honoring the victims of the Armenian Genocide and recognizing leading public figures for their impact and service. Among the honorees were Reps. Judy Chu, D-Monterey Park and Laura Friedman, D-Glendale, political commentator Ana Kasparian, former West Hollywood Mayor Sepi Shyne and artist Arpi Jinbashian Krikorian.
The league bills itself as a nonprofit advocacy organization founded in 2020 in response “to a significant increase in anti-Armenian racism, defamation, hate crimes and Armenophobia.” It monitors and confront bias, disinformation, propaganda, and slander of the Armenian people and culture at the media level, including social media, academics, intelligentsia and public policy.
On April 24, 1915, Ottoman authorities arrested Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople, leading to an estimated 1.5 million people being killed.
Turkey denies the deaths constituted genocide, saying the toll has been inflated and that those killed were victims of civil war and unrest.