Intercultural Understanding #241

Pious Ali:

highlights from this week's program with the young people. The Portland Public School is very diverse in terms of racial and language and religion, so we have kids who are coming from many different backgrounds.

Gerard Kiladjian:

It helped them connect better with the students. They got involved socially with the students because they understood the different cultures. So I think it was a plus for the family here to grow up in Maine and to have that background for us and for our kids.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This is Dr. Lisa Belisle and you are listening to Love Maine radio show number 241, Intercultural Understanding, airing for the first time on Sunday, May 1, 2016. How can we promote understanding between cultural groups in Maine? Whether our family has been here for generations or whether we have just arrived, it is incumbent upon us to learn how to get along and celebrate people of all backgrounds. Today we speak with Pius Ali, founder of the Maine Interfaith Youth alliance, and Gerard and Annie Kiladjian, founders of the Armenian Cultural association of Maine. Thank you for joining us.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Our next guest is well known within the community and an individual that I've been interested in talking to for quite some time. This is Pius Ali, who is a youth and community engagement specialist in the Muskie School of Public Service where he's working on a project called Portland Empowered. Pius has spent the better part of his career focusing on engaging youth and creating dialogue across cultural, ethnic, socioeconomic and faith based groups. He is the founder and Executive Director of the Maine Interfaith Youth Alliance. He is the the co director and co founder of King Fellows, a Portland based youth group dedicated to creating meaningful opportunities for youth leadership and civic engagement based on the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Pius is a member of the Portland's Board of Education and he is the first African born American and Muslim to be elected to a public office in Maine. Thanks for coming in today.

Pious Ali:

Thank you for having me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It is really a great honor for us to have you because you, you do a lot of things, you're in a lot of places, you work very hard, you've spent a lot of time doing the things that you feel passionate about.

Pious Ali:

I do my best.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, tell me about, tell me about your background. What was it about your family and the way that you were raised and your education that caused you to become so interested in these topics?

Pious Ali:

Well, that's interesting because yes, the way I was raised, but not necessarily my education or professional background. I was raised in a household where my family, which is my mother's family, my grandfather and his brothers and cousins have a house where other people bring their kids to come and live with us. It's a madrasa, which means a place that young people learn how to. It's like a Sunday school, but that goes on throughout the week where kids learn how to read a Quran, the Muslim holy book, learn how to write and a couple of other things religiously and culturally. So I grew up in my own household where we share it with kids coming from the community. And yeah, so that is how I was raised. I went to a regular school, public school back in Ghana and when I graduated from high school I took a job. I took courses in, then they call it, it's like a journalism school, but I specifically did photojournalism. So I work with newspapers and magazines and did a couple of photographs from many different entities. Back in Ghana, before I migrated here, I did live in New York for two years and then I came to Maine. Since I've been to Maine, I've worked with young people. I joke to people that I stumble on the job. I wasn't looking to save any or create anything for anybody. I was looking for a job like any other immigrant out there. I was looking for a job I will make a box and take care of my then wife and son. And then one thing led to the other. I learned so much from the young people that I work with. I have a, a funny story that I share with people. I used to work for a program. My very first job with young people was with an organization then called Opportunity. Not Opportunity People, original Opportunity People Regional Opportunity Program. And they had this program called Peer Leader, as in Peer and Leader. And when I first applied for the job, I Didn't get it because I didn't have a background in social work and I didn't have a degree in social work. Someone else was hired and the person happened to be the second on the list of many applicants after series of interviews. So I didn't get the job. And then I think a month or a month and a half or two months down the road, the person who was hired left because she had a job somewhere that was paying more or that is more what she wanted to do than what this job was. So I got called back by the director of the program and she said, hey. She called my home number and left a message and said, hey, if you are still interested in that job, call me back. And I called back. And so the story is I just gave this background so that you would know where I was coming from. My first time at the job was at Riverton Park. And the young people that I was going to work with, most of whom are immigrants like me, some of them are from Africa, some of them from different parts of the world. And so I took it on myself thinking that, oh, this is going to be an easy job. These kids, we have the same background, some of them are Muslims. And it goes on and on and on. The similarities are more bigger than the non similarities between me and this group of young people. And I will be sitting in the corner and nobody would talk to me. The initial connection was not there because I don't have no idea what I was doing. I'm a people person, but I have not done any work with young people. So I was there for a few weeks and then I started connecting with these young people. But also I was coming back. I was coming from the background which was culturally conservative from how I was raised. So I was looking at these young people like when I speak, no one speaks. I'm the adult in the room. But after my weird interaction with them where you don't know what you're talking about, I learned they forced me. I watched my colleague, I was working with someone, I watched the way she engaged them. And I stepped back and look at the way I was engaging these young people. And they forced me to do self reflection, look at the way I do things and learn that no, the way I was raised is quite different from how you engage young people here. The principles, the basic principles of raising young people or working with young people are the same. By the way you engage is a little bit different. So that was my first baptism. If there's no if, that's a word to use into working with young people. And since then, I've made it a point to learn as much as I can whenever I'm working with young people because they have a lot of to share, and most of the time as adults don't look for that piece. We want them to just listen to us and do what we say they should do.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Tell me about the King Fellows Program, the program that you co founded with Rachel Talbot Ross.

Pious Ali:

The King Fellows Program is a program for young high school students of color from Greater Portland. About 85% of them are from Portland. Some of them are from South Portland, A few of them are from Westbrook, and. And similarly, about 95 or 98% of them are all students of Portland public schools. But because some are from South Portland, they go to school in South Portland or one or two go to private schools here in Portland. So it was the idea of. It came about when I think it's about 2010 or 2011, during the Martin Luther King weekend holidays. The NWA CP have a group of youth, and the main Interfaith Youth alliance have a group of youth. And I've done some work of Seas of Peace. I'm still part of the. What we call the Greater Seas of Peace family. And so we have students from the Seas of Peace group. And during the Matluda King holiday, these kids and some other kids who are not part of anything will come together and do projects. And so during this project, we call them Kin Fellows, but it was becoming a little bit too all over the place, and we wanted to contain it and turn it into an actual youth group so that when they come, there's no, oh, I'm this, I'm that, or I'm this. And it could be more of a structured program where young people can be part of it and have this solid vision and go.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And yeah, you also do work with Portland Empowered through the Muskie School.

Pious Ali:

Right.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And that's a slightly. You're doing something slightly different there.

Pious Ali:

So Portland Empowered is a project that is funded by Nelime Education foundation, which is, I think, the largest private education foundation in New England. And the program is a school reform kind of program. Basically what we do is we work with parents who are coming from what we call marginalized background parents who do not, for whatever reason, normally engage the school districts, either because the districts have challenges on how to engage them, or they don't understand or do not have the experience of having engaged school districts. And then with the parents, I will start with the parents. We have a parent group called Parent Engagement Partners. And then we have a youth group, a student group called Youth Engagement Partners. The parent Engagement Partners for the past three past year and half to two years have had a conversation in different schools in Portland with broader parents on how to create a meaningful engagement between them and Portland Public Schools. And during those conversations they create form of conversation called Shared Space Cafe where we joke that everyone is an expert. Most of the parents are coming from immigrant background, but it's not an exclusive group for immigrant parents. We have some mainstream parents who may or may not have graduated high school, or may not have experience, or may not have experience, engagement or communications between them and the school system. It used to be housed with City of Portland's Refugee Services. And then the foundation wanted an institution or a school or something like that to base it on. So they asked Muskie School to apply for the grant and Muscule School did with another organization. But Muskie School got it. And because I was working on the project anyway, they wrote me into the grant and so I moved to Maski School with a grant. So the work did not exclusively started from Masque School. It was started from the refugee Services and then it moved to Masque School. We did a one on one to gather information on what are the issues between that demography, what are some of the issues and challenges that they have. And what came up was communications. And so we also went on further to do more community conversations in different communities that the parents who are involved are coming from and then gather more information and then decided to have what they call the Shared Space Cafe. Yeah, we have a parent, what we call lead parent organizers. The basic idea is to come up with certain way of communication that will make schools comfortable in engaging parents who are coming from that background and also make it very comfortable for these parents to walk into school districts or their classrooms, their children's classrooms in high school, and talk to the teachers without any reservation. And the whole idea is to make high school experience meaningful and also purposeful for students.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

What are some of the issues that you hear from students or from parents who are from other countries or have a different religious background and they're trying to interact with a school or a community. What types of things come up that you hear about?

Pious Ali:

Well, so I'm going to take off my heart as a staff member for Portland Empowered. I wear so many hats. And I'm also not speaking as a school board member. I'm speaking as me, somebody who does a lot of work in the community. I think some of the issues that comes up in my engagement with families and students in the community is some of the claims that the students or some of the families that made are that either there is a language barrier on both sides or misunderstanding or miscommunication of situation with the young people. The Portland Public School is very diverse in terms of ratio and language and religion. So we have kids who are coming from many different backgrounds. The staff at Portland schools do their best to understand where and who is coming from where. Unfortunately, it's. It's. How do you say it? It's a tall list of things that you have to learn. And so there's bound to be somebody being called names and. And somebody being referred to as this or that by other students who may not necessarily even know what they are saying. Yeah. So there are situations like that. Not specifically. You hear stories here and there. Yeah. With the. I'm a Muslim, so I have a. I talk to people a lot in the Muslim community, in the immigrant Muslim communities. In the recent, um. At the national. The recent national platform, political rhetoric did. Yes. Increase or created a few instances here in Portland where there's a parent, a woman from Iraq who was. Another bus stop. She didn't specifically said which bus stop where somebody was talking to her and the person look at her and spit on her face. And this one doesn't speak any English, so she doesn't even know what to say. And there was an instant where someone was sitting at a waiting room in one of the big hospitals in Portland and another patient started yelling at her and telling her to go back where she come from because her people don't like Americans. What is she doing here? In both situations, these people don't necessarily speak good English, so they didn't know how to react. And it's unfortunate that both situations happen to women based on the way they look, because I can walk down the street, yes, I'm a black man. Someone will see there's a black man in prophecy, he's an immigrant. But the person can know whether I'm what I worship or what religion or what's my faith based on the color of my skin or how I look. And also, I don't dress specifically like any. I don't wear any religious edifice that shows that this person is a Muslim or a Jew or a Christian or whatever it is. So it's difficult for mostly women and children.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I just think about if I was, as a woman, if I was in another country, standing at a bus stop and somebody spit in my face and said something to me. And I Didn't even understand them. I can't even imagine how that would make me feel.

Pious Ali:

Right. And there's been an instance where a young woman was at a gas station here in. In Portland. I think that's about a year ago. And so another person who was buying gas, he happens to be a veteran. He's not from Portland. It's actually not from Maine. He's from Connecticut or somewhere, and he's been to Iraq. And he kept calling her all sort of names. He said he was gonna kill her. And the gas station attendants have to literally hold on the door and tell him that he was not welcome there. The good thing was that he's already finished paying for his gas, so there's no need for him to get into the building. They took his license plate number and handed it over to the police, and it came out that the car doesn't even belong to him. It's for his dad, and he lives in Connecticut. He was a veteran. I don't know how that case ended, but the police were working on it at the time that I know of it. So, yeah, it's difficult, and it's so

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

complicated because you have on one side people who may be refugees who have their own set of painful circumstances.

Pious Ali:

Right.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And then you have people who are veterans or have their set of their background and their experience, and there's. There's enough pain for. There's enough pain to go around.

Pious Ali:

Right.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

But we all have to coexist. We all have to live.

Pious Ali:

Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Here, together. So how do we make that happen?

Pious Ali:

Well, try to understand each other. I believe. I'm a firm believer that speaking to people, irrespective of who they are or what your beliefs are, try at least to reach out to that person, talk to that person, understand where that person is coming from. Yeah. Having that conversation opens a lot of doors and a lot of opportunities for us as humans to live peacefully next to each other, irrespective of what we believe or what we lean on. I believe that we all are looking for the same thing, which is everybody wants to live peacefully. Everybody wants to raise families. They want to have a safe home, have food on their table, and go about their lives without being disturbed or interrupted by someone else. So having a conversation with an open mind to know that, yes, you have the right to leave, but other people also have the right to live without you imposing your beliefs or the way of your life on them. To each their way of life. So far as my way of life is not getting on your way, I believe that you don't have to force me to live the way you live and then we all live in peace. Unfortunately, it doesn't work like that in reality.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Why did you decide to come to Maine?

Pious Ali:

It's a long story. I didn't come to Maine to living mean I. I'm joking. I came, I came with. I have a friend who came to school here. He came to me in college of Art and I visited him a couple of times and I was going to move to Albany in New York. I have friends who say, oh, you can come work here, blah blah, blah. And then I came here and to stay for a week or something like that. And I met my ex wife and I decided not to go anywhere.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

How has it worked out for you?

Pious Ali:

Well, Maine is a great place. I will say that I'm very oh, I can talk for Portland because I want to live in Portland. I live a little bit in Cape Elizabeth, but not enough for me to talk for on behalf even though it's a great place. But I cannot speak for Cape Elizabeth so I can speak for Portland. I think Poland is a great place, great people. I've experimented with many different ideas and I got nothing but support. I have grown into a different person than I was from when I arrived in this country. I have easily transitioned from being somebody who work in the media, who was a photojournalist or a photographer into somebody who does social work, work with young people and work in the community. And I've had tons of support in everything that I have I've done.

Annie Kiladjian:

So

Pious Ali:

I can't say anything but that I think it's working good and grateful for all the support and all the people that have engaged on that journey. Actually, I think Sunday was exactly 14 years since I moved to Maine and it's been nothing but yeah, there's been some challenges, ups and downs, but this is nothing but exciting and I'm looking forward to do more pious.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

How can people find out about Portland Empowered or about the King Fellows program?

Pious Ali:

Both of them have a King Fellows, have a Facebook page and actually King Fellows is having a youth summit next week. It's not next week. On January 16th as part of the Martin Luther King Day celebrations, King Fellows is having a youth summit at from 1 to 5. We're going to have the mayor and the superintendent of school, some school board members and hopefully some city councilors and they're going to talk about young black students and the challenges that they face in the schools and in the communities with the mayor and both have Facebook page kin Fellows have a Facebook page that is public on Facebook and then the Portland Empowered have a Facebook page which is for the whole program called Portland Empowered. But you will see the youth part and then you will see the parent part. We post staff and we have a couple of blips about on both Facebooks. Have a short blips on what the groups are about.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well I appreciate the work that you've done here in Portland and for the State of Maine and I thank you for coming in to speak with me today. We've been talking with Pius Ali who is a youth and community engagement Specialist working on a project called Portland Empowered with the Muskie School of Public Service and who is also the co director and co founder of the King Fellows Program and also a member of the Portland's Board of Education and the first African born American and Muslim to be elected to a public office in Maine. Thank you so much for sharing your time and your talents and your energy. I appreciate it.

Pious Ali:

Thank you for having me Experienced chef

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I have two dear friends who I've known for quite a while and are really wonderful people in their own right, so I'm glad I have the chance to finally have time to speak with them on air. These are Gerard and Annie Kaladjian. Gerard is the General Manager of the Portland Harbor Hotel, Diamond's Edge Restaurant and Marina and the newly opened Inn at Diamond Cove on Great Diamond Island. His passion for hospitality began with a hotel management degree from Boston University. Gerard is a first generation immigrant from Syria. Shortly after settling In Maine in 2000, Gerard and Annie established the Armenian Cultural association association of Maine to promote and preserve their Armenian culture. Among events they brought to Portland are lectures by notable authors, accomplished speakers, and Armenian folk dance and music performances. Thanks for coming in, Gerard.

Gerard Kiladjian:

Thank you.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

We also have Annie with us. Annie grew up among the rich culture and diversity of Montreal, Canada. The child of Armenian immigrants from Cairo, Egypt, she was raised with a close sense of family and community her entire life. When she married Gerard Koladjian In July of 1991, her adventure began. After living in Montreal for five years, they made their way first to New Jersey, then finally Portland, Maine. Annie began her career and education in the fashion and design industry in Montreal. Shortly after moving to Maine, she studied and worked in the interior design field. She is currently the owner of Annie K Designs, llc, an interior design firm that has created beautiful spaces throughout Maine, Boston, in New York and Los Angeles. After living in Portland, Maine for 16 years and raising two beautiful children, she cannot see herself living anywhere else. Thanks for being here.

Annie Kiladjian:

Thanks for having us, Lisa.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And I can't really see you guys living anywhere else either because you're kind of fixtures in the Portland community.

Annie Kiladjian:

Thank you.

Pious Ali:

Yes, thank you.

Gerard Kiladjian:

We enjoy it very much.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Let's talk about Montreal, Annie. I'm interested because having been there, you know, a few times now, it's really. It's this very artistic and creative and wonderful place that's not that far from Portland, and yet it seems very European in some ways.

Annie Kiladjian:

It's very European and very diverse. And growing up in a place like Montreal actually grounded me in so many ways to so many different aspects of whether it be arts or fashion or design or anything else, the people I grew up with. This is the difference between Portland that we moved into in 2000 and where I grew up was that there was just so much diversity in so many ways, whether it was food, I mean, so many different things. And I loved growing up there. I loved being able to speak my language. I speak Armenian fluently, as does Gerard. And having the Armenian culture and family around was a huge part of how I was raised. And that's what we tried to do when we came here.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So it must have been interesting to be in Portland and have it be 16 years ago, still relatively non diverse, I guess. I mean, you could speak to that, both of you, better than me.

Gerard Kiladjian:

I think it changed quite a bit. If you compare it to Montreal, perhaps not. But you know, the. The Portland we knew 16 years ago was very different. What it is now, I feel then I find it to be a lot more diverse. There's a lot more culture, different Heritages are coming into the city and making contributions and making their presence known and sharing their culture with everybody else. So I think Portland has come a long way in the last, even just 10 years of what we saw when we came in.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It's interesting to me that Montreal and Portland are similar in some ways. They both are relatively cold climates, somewhat metropolitan, but Montreal for some reason has just attracted a broader range of people to live there. Is it because it's maybe a bigger presence within the general landscape of Canada than Maine, than Portland is?

Gerard Kiladjian:

I think it's because of its. A little bit of existing cultural diversity, being French Canadian. Part of Montreal is French Canadian, part of its English speaking. So that makes it a little more international. And there has been a lot of migration from different cultures all around the world to Montreal because of the way it is, is and all the cultures that it has, from food to music to theater to everything else. And I think that's what's been attractive to immigrants and Canadians in general to go to Montreal. And so Portland is the miniature. I find it a little bit of miniature of that. It's not to that scale, but yet we have a lot of things that we enjoyed in Montreal that we can have a small taste of it here, here in Portland.

Pious Ali:

Now.

Gerard Kiladjian:

Now we do, yes.

Annie Kiladjian:

Now, 16 years ago, I don't feel it was the same. It was definitely a lot less.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I have to admit that until I think I was in Boston and for some reason we were running around Boston and we went into a convention center and we saw that there was an Armenian, I think, convention that was going on down there. And we also saw that there was, there's a monument in Boston. And I mean, I feel like I have some degree of education behind me, but I didn't really know that much about Armenia and what had happened. And I wonder if this felt strange to you, coming to a country where that just wasn't talked about all that much.

Gerard Kiladjian:

Well, it was a little bit strange, but also Armenians in general didn't talk a lot about it growing up. When the Armenians moved to different parts of the world after the genocide in 1915, they tried to assimilate. So it wasn't a topic. The genocide itself wasn't a big topic that everybody talked about. But when I moved to Boston, that was one of the reasons I moved to Boston is because it was an Armenian community and they were an active community and that was kind of a piece of home. Moving into Boston when I went to college. And that kept my Armenian culture alive in actually got Me even more interested in it as the time passed and I graduated and I started working, I started connecting with the culture. So it wasn't a big surprise. It was something that I enjoyed and helped me kind of get more stay connected with my culture, even though I moved away from Syria.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It seems as though even calling it the Armenian genocide has really only been. Has really only taken root with perhaps within the last 10 years. And yet it's interesting that other genocides obviously have taken place over the last centuries, and those have been specifically called that.

Gerard Kiladjian:

Correct.

Annie Kiladjian:

Why is that we're still fighting for that?

Gerard Kiladjian:

I think it's because of the. In the United States, because of the strategic alliance with Turkey. I think the United States as a government as a whole are really reluctant to call it a genocide because they feel that they don't want to upset Turkey in a strategic alliance. I think different states within the United States have recognized it. Certainly the state of Maine for the last 15 years have been recognizing it every year at the state legislature level, and many other states do so. But as the United States government, they have not come around to do that because of the pressures, the political pressure coming from their relationship with Turkey.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So how. How does that make you feel to know that your families were impacted by this? And it's something that still isn't quite as mainstream as some of the other genocides that are talked about.

Gerard Kiladjian:

It is frustrating. Like Annie said, we keep fighting for that. We keep trying to get the US Legislatures to acknowledge it, and it is very frustrating. It's been going on for many, many years, and we continue to lobby with the legislatures and explain our story and ask them to step forward and call it what it is. But it's been a difficult road for Armenians in general not to get recognized as a genocide.

Annie Kiladjian:

Every April 24th, we try every. I mean, we try throughout the entire year, but on April 24, we try to bring light to it and try to get recognized. And unfortunately, so far, it hasn't happened, but hopefully it will. Federal level, state level, we have recognition. Maine recognizes it. We go up to Augusta every April 24th or around that time, whenever it falls, during the week. And as of last year, I think it was last year that we had a proclamation that the state of Maine gave us. It's wonderful. It's a great feeling, you know, to be recognized on the state level.

Gerard Kiladjian:

There have been a lot of Armenian community, people in the community here that really contributed throughout their life to the state of Maine.

Annie Kiladjian:

So they really have.

Gerard Kiladjian:

It's great to recognize.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And what's the significance of April 24th.

Gerard Kiladjian:

It's the date of the Armenian Genocide, 1915. April 24th is when the genocide started at the hands of the Ottoman Turks. They try to eliminate the Armenian race in Turkey, the Ottoman Empire, at the time.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So I'm interested in your daughter's experience with Armenia. I know Annie, you and I were talking about a time that she spoke spent over there actually doing some work in, I believe, the public health field.

Annie Kiladjian:

Yes. Alexandra studied health sciences and was very much interested in going to Armenia and serving in some form. And she decided, I think it was August of last year, she went to Armenia for five months and worked for Nordic organization called coaf, it's Children of Armenia Fund, that a very dear friend of ours started. An incredible organization that a lot of our friends are part of, but one in general who started this organization to create, basically create entities inside villages where he could help a certain village at a time in whatever capacity was necessary, whether it was building hospitals, schools. And he does so with the help of funding from the diaspora, mostly from the diaspora. And Alexandra, being in the medical field, let's say, really wanted to somehow or another get into that with coaf. She ended up working at the office in Yerevan, which is the capital of Armenia, and she would go weekly, two or three times a week to the different villages, help out in whatever way she could. One of the, you know, we work on so many levels here where, you know, whether it's the medical field or, you know, anti bullying or any of these fields that actually kind of assimilate together, she decided that she wanted to take on, just as an example, an anti bullying campaign in Armenia. Doesn't exist. Does not exist. And it creates anxiety for different kids. So, you know, it's like this domino effect. Right. And Alexandra was put in charge. This was probably right at the end of her almost coming home of this anti bullying campaign. And it was incredible how it was received by these kids in these villages because they never. That was just not something that they even recognized, truly. And there's just so much growing that still has to be done in these countries. I mean, you know, I don't want to call. It's not a third world country, but in so many ways it's so backwards. And we're still. The diaspora, along with the government is trying to push forward so many different aspects of whether it be medicine or education or government policy. There's just so many different aspects of Armenia that we could still help to bring to the 21st century. And Alexandra was absolutely loving Every second that she was there, because she was able to give just a little bit of herself to her homeland. And you have to understand, my daughter was born in Montreal. Gerard and I were born in the Middle east, you know, and so her ties to Armenia were not very strong in the sense that we didn't really have family that live in Armenia. We were those families that had to leave Armenia, our homeland, and assimilate into a different country. He being in Syria and myself in Egypt. And from there we came here. So we don't really know Armenia. We went three and a half years ago to an incredible event that a friend of ours hosted. And we were there for two weeks and got to see Armenia and our kids. At that time, the message was, give back, give back. We were 100 Armenian friends that went, and the message was, give back to Armenia. Some way or another, give back. This is what we need the Diaspora to do. And Alex, and, you know, even our son Aaron, really has that goal of some way or another giving back to our homeland.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

What did it mean to each of you if you're both Armenian? But Gerard, you're from Syria, and Annie, your family went to Egypt. How did that influence the way that you looked at the world and maybe your Armenian culture? How did that influence your families?

Gerard Kiladjian:

You know, I think the Middle Eastern influence is similar between Syria and Egypt. There's a lot of hospitality, family life, preservation of culture, preservation of language. And so our families were not very different, Annie's family and my family being from two different countries. But it did influence in terms of growing up and how we raise our kids, to make sure that they understand other cultures, they understand where they came from, but also what goes on in different cultures. And that gives them a broad understanding of different societies in the world. And that also helped them in the public schools in Portland when they grew up, because they had the different backgrounds and a little bit of the. Little bit of the Armenian language and some Arabic that I speak, but I didn't speak at home. But my son's always been intrigued about, helped them connect better with the students. They got involved socially with the students because they understood the different cultures. So I think it was a plus for the family here to grow up in Maine and to have that background for us and for our kids.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

As part of the work that you do at the Armenian Cultural association, you've brought in authors and speakers, you've done folk dance and musical performances. Talk to me a little bit about the Armenian culture. Culture and what types of things are important.

Gerard Kiladjian:

Food and music and dance are very important. I think every time you put a little bit of food and some music, you can get the Armenians to get together. And that's part of the culture that we wanted to keep. That's why we've hosted some musical events. But also intellectually, there's a lot of authors that talked about the Armenian genocide and the Armenian culture and how the Armenians grew up. So we've done a little bit of that as well, because we found that in Maine, the Armenians are second and third generation Armenians in Maine moved in right after the genocide. And as the generations pass by, the Armenians assimilate more. So you end up families with half Armenian, quarter Armenian, because they start marrying non Armenian and it start dispersing a little bit. So we found that that was an important part, that rather than let it fade away, let's keep the Armenianism in. Everybody who has part Armenian. And, you know, and you've noticed also in the last 15 years, all around the United States, people are beginning to connect a little more with their cultures, whatever that is. And so the timing was right for that. And so we focus on culture, we focus on music and focus food every chance we get. We've done. Annie did a couple of cooking classes for Armenians so they can learn certain things that they've heard from their grandmothers that used to do this or that. And Annie kind of has a couple of classes and help them cook it and learn it. So we keep it fun and interesting.

Annie Kiladjian:

We tried to do language classes right in the beginning for the kids. For the kids, which was a little difficult and trying to tie people down because I went to Saturday school to learn how to, well, speak. We both speak Armenian, but to write and to read Armenian. And I found that it was a lot more difficult to tie kids down here. I gave four classes and it was barely enough to just, you know, get them to say a few words. My kids speak. They don't speak very well, but they do speak. And if they are put in a position where they have to speak, they both do beautifully. And I think that's true of just about any language when you're, when you've heard it and you know what it's supposed to sound like, you can try harder and you can, you know, what you're trying to say. And I find with our kids, that's really, that's really true. They, they both, when they go to Montreal, when they're speaking with their family, they speak Armenian, they can do it. But when they're at home with us, they speak English. So I think for us, starting the Armenian Cultural association, and let's just say that there was an Armenian Cultural association already here in the 70s and 80s, even before that. Even before that, with a lot of big families in.

Gerard Kiladjian:

It's called the Portrait Armenian Club, I believe.

Annie Kiladjian:

Yes. And these families had great dances and different events that they could probably tell you more about. But we didn't have that when we moved here. It was. We looked at each other and said, you know, so we going to live in a state where we have nothing Armenian, absolutely nothing. We met one family, and through that family met a couple of different people. We honestly thought we were the only Armenians in the state for a little while. But as soon as we found this family and we became like family with

Gerard Kiladjian:

them, and we learned about the history

Annie Kiladjian:

of Armenia, the history and other families who had made a difference here, and we ended up starting.

Gerard Kiladjian:

Continue.

Annie Kiladjian:

Yeah, we started the Armenian Cultural association and then said, okay, now what? You know, let's get some lists together. You know, who's here, what can we do? And I think our first. Our first event was the picnic right at Two Lights. I believe that was our first one. And we thought we'd get 20, 30 people and 100. And something showed up more. Right.

Pious Ali:

That was one of the bigger ones.

Gerard Kiladjian:

300 people that came in.

Annie Kiladjian:

We had too many people for the park, basically.

Gerard Kiladjian:

I think what brought us together the first time was when we put the monument on Cumberland Avenue. There's a small monument commemorating the Armenian genocide. It's right in front of the Church of the Immaculate Conception on Cumberland Avenue. And that was the first event we put together because the groundwork was already late. They had begun talking to the city. The city agreed to give us a

Pious Ali:

plot of land the Portland Club had.

Gerard Kiladjian:

And we came in and we decided, let's finish this project with them. And that was the first event where we had a couple of hundred people show up when we first did the inauguration of the monument. So that kind of started going. And then we started doing a picnic. And then from then on, every year, we do. We try to do two, maybe three events every year.

Annie Kiladjian:

We've got a great group of people with us now. I mean, for a very long time, it was just the two of us trying to kind of push through some different events. And last, I think it's probably about three, probably about five years. We've got quite a few people that help us, which, you know, you just. You can't do this alone. You need other people in one form or another. And the support that we've got right now is quite amazing. And we love it. We love the discussions we have, what we can do and what we can't do and what we should bring forth. Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I find it fascinating that Gerard, you entered into the hospitality business and Annie, you do interior design. So both of you are very much about the creating of home, whether it's home away from home or home in home.

Annie Kiladjian:

Well put.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And it's so interesting that you. You're from. Your family was sort of dispersed and now you come to Portland and you are very consciously making this your home, but at the same time, you're pulling in international pieces. You know, you're designing in Los Angeles and New York and Boston. And Annie and Gerard, of course, with the Portland Harbor Hotel and all the properties that you're a part of, people are coming from everywhere and you're working with people internationally. So it's this interesting blending of things that both of you have brought into your lives.

Gerard Kiladjian:

It is. And in the hotel side of it, definitely it helps connect with many people from across the world that I tend to see. And that's part of that hospitality that I've enjoyed. That's one of the reasons I went into the hotel business, it seems. It's part of my personality and I enjoy it. That's the part I enjoy. So I think having that international flair or background from living different places and bringing the culture certainly help our family life, but also help our life here and people around us.

Annie Kiladjian:

Yeah. I think for me, it's every space I create, I find. And a lot of people have actually said this to me. I feel like part of the space has some kind of influence from my Middle Eastern or ethnic background. It's in a very small way, but I find that people like it. I just finished a beautiful place on Munjoy Hill, and interestingly enough, the powder room had this beautiful wallpaper and the homeowner said it brought a little bit of you into our house, which was really nice. It was really nice like that.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

How did people find out about the Armenian Cultural association of Maine Online?

Gerard Kiladjian:

We have a website, it's armeniansofmain.com and usually we post all of our events. We also have a newsletter people can sign up for a news newsletter, and we keep them posted on all the different events that are going on.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And, of course, people can see the work that you do, Annie, in Maine Home Design and the work that you do, Gerard, featured often in Maine Magazine, Old Port magazine, sometimes Maine Home Design. This has been really interesting for me. Really fascinating having known both of you for a while to know this other layer, this other piece of your background. I really appreciate your coming in.

Annie Kiladjian:

Thank you.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And talking to me about.

Gerard Kiladjian:

Thank you for having us.

Annie Kiladjian:

Thanks for having us. Really.

[Unidentified voice]:

It's a pleasure, truly.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

We've been speaking with Gerard and Annie Khaladian, who are the founders of the Armenian Cultural association of Maine. Gerard is the general manager of the Portland Harbor Hotel, Diamond's Edge Restaurant and Marina, and the newly opened Inn at Diamond Cove on Great Diamond Island. And Annie is the owner of Nek Designs, llc. I appreciate your taking the time to be here.

Annie Kiladjian:

Thanks, Lisa.

Gerard Kiladjian:

Thank you.

[Unidentified voice]:

It's a pleasure.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You've been listening to Love Maine radio show number 241, Intercultural Understanding. Our guests have included Pious Ali, Gerard Kaladjian and Annie Kaladjian. We love to hear from you, so please let us know what you think of Love Maine Radio. We welcome your suggestions for future shows. Also let our sponsors know that you have heard about them here. We are privileged that they enable us to bring Love Maine Radio to you each week. This is Dr. Lisa Belisle. I hope that you have enjoyed our Intercultural Understanding show. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your day. May you have a bountiful life.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

When I think about sleep medication, I think about the patients who often will tell me that even on the prescribed dose the next day they feel hungover and it's less likely that they can actually perform the jobs that they're doing. I even worry a little bit about them driving so often. What we're told that we should prescribe as doctors is far more than what most people need. And it's something that we can really do on a fairly short term basis just to break whatever cycle that is until they get into a better pattern.

[Unidentified voice]:

That's exactly to get into a better habit. And they may need a trigger for a while to reset that habit. But what I've noticed over time though is we will often pull out the sledgehammer when we might need just a finer tool. Alternative medicine does provide us a lot of windows of opportunity. Acupuncture, aromatherapy, these might seem, you know, more subtle. Massage therapy, things like that, that could help institute a better cycle of sleep for people, a better restful state, meditation, those are all very, very, very powerful. But they take time. They take time for people to learn them, they take time for people to use them as a routine. And all those alternative things would apply as well to the management of pain. Everybody has an individual or subjective experience with pain, but we also have the ability with our mind to control how we feel in certain situations. And based on how we've lived, that's the track record that's set before us. And that can be changed, it can be worked with, it can be altered. It's just about creating a new loop, a new habit, a new experience.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I find it really very encouraging that there are three of us in the Brunswick area who are physicians, you and Dr. Cindy Duchaine and myself. We all practice acupuncture, and each of us have been doing acupuncture for a number of years. And so having that kind of creeping into the medical mainstream, it makes me feel good because now we're offering people something that might actually help their lives in a bigger way than let's just deal with the symptom.

[Unidentified voice]:

Well, you know, 10 or 15 or 20 years ago, it might have been odd to even suggest acupuncture to a patient. And now it is more mainstream. We know how many people are using alternative medicines and alternative treatments, and they do provide good relief, and they do provide, I'll say, individual success. Even if there's not some gigantic 10,000 person success study that says it's going to work, we've seen a lot of individual success with that. And it's always good to offer people more options, more opportunities. If you limit yourself to one or two choices, you're very unlikely to be successful over time with patients. And that's where the relationship with medicine goes. Somebody can come and see you. And if you only have two options for headache you know you're going to be out pretty quick. You have to continue to go back and redefine the problem, redefine what successes they've had, what failures they've had, and try to come up with new solutions. And that's, I think the challenge of family medicine now is to integrate more of that, is to integrate more of the lifestyle, the things we hear about functional medicine, the things that we know about alternative treatments into people's lives so they can have those good skills and have those kind, good, we'll call them, self adapting skills to be able to manage their problems.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

We've been talking about acupuncture, but there are also doctors who for a long time have been practicing what's called osteopathic manipulative medicine or manual medicine, in addition to chiropractors who are doing the same sort of manipulative medicine. And often bringing together something like acupuncture with something like OMT or omm. Manipulative medicine can be really life changing. I think for patients.

[Unidentified voice]:

You're right. When somebody has the opportunity or has a successful acupuncture or even OMT session and they feel, even if it's for a moment or a few days or a few weeks, that their pain is more manageable or better, or that they're able to do some of the things that they didn't used to be able to do, or they can successfully do their job, take care of their kids, manage their life, that's way more powerful than any pill will ever be. And it's not something they have to think about how to cope with. People that take a pill or something, it's that moment they look for it to wipe everything away. Whereas when you've taught them a skill with meditation or they've been able to have OMT and some manual muscle therapies, they go, wow, I can do some of this myself and I can actually correct some of the malalignments and the other problems that they've been carrying for years. So that can be very useful for actually getting to the base of their problem.

Pious Ali:

I think

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

another two kind of foundational things that you and I both incorporate into our practices are discussion of diet and discussion of exercise. Because exercise, if you can get past an acute pain flare, exercise over the long term actually has been shown to be helpful for chronic pain issues, for things like fibromyalgia. But diet is also important. You referred to functional medicine and this is a very specific way.