Cityscape

Video: Meet LA Freelancer Liana Aghajanian, Winner of Detroit House

October 03, 2015, 6:05 PM by  Alan Stamm

An Iranian-born journalist moving here from the Los Angeles area was presented with the keys to a rehabbed house she can live in as long as she wants.

Liana Aghajanian, 30, is winner No. 2 in a nonprofit's Write A House giveaway, as Ellen Pilligian reports in the Freep:

On Friday night, Aghajanian will be the guest of honor at a party in her new home, the second the nonprofit has given away in a neighborhood just north of Hamtramck.

Founded in 2012, WAH gives writers from around the country a chance to own a home after their two-year residency.  WAH started with three vacant homes they bought at auction through donations and a grant, and rehabilitates them using local firms and training local workers, an effort to boost Detroit’s population and economy at the same time.

Aghajanian (pronounced agg-HAH-jahn-EE-yan) came to American in 1988 with her Armenian-born parents. She lives in Tujunga, in the Valley near LA, and has written for The New York Times, Foreign Policy, The Atlantic and other publications, including dispatches from abroad.


The winner's free home in Detroit's NoHam area north of Hamtramck, shown in June. (Write A House photo by Michelle and Chris Gerard)

The Detroiter-to-be, whose Friday afternoon arrival was her first trip to Detroit, graduated  from California State University at Northridge.

She's the editor of Ianyan Magazine, an online publication about Armenia and the Middle East.

"I specialize in, and am passionate about longform, narrative storytelling, and have spent time at the L.A. County Coroner’s office figuring out why an increasing number of bodies remain unclaimed in Los Angeles, investigated medical marijuana use in assisted living facilities, told the story of one of the most shocking murders in the UK and spent weeks with Iranian refugees in Europe converting to Christianity from Islam," she posts at her site.

She was in Mongolia for several weeks last month, thanks to an International Reporting Project grant from Johns Hopkins University to explore how coal-burning emissions affect maternal health.

Now she's enthusiastic about Detroit-based adventures that start in three months with her partner, London-born graphic designer, illustrator and photographer Keegam Shamlian, who'll also relocate: 

She elaborates Friday afternoon on Facebook:

This is one of those rare moments when I don't have the words to exactly describe how any of this feels yet, but I'm going to try anyway:

I am beyond ecstatic that I will be calling one of the most dynamic, diverse and historically rich cities home soon in a house that I've been so generously given through the most wonderful, peculiar and completely fitting of circumstances. I am so grateful to Write A House for giving me not just the literal space to breathe and think, but a strong sense of community I am so looking forward to exploring.

It feels like my entire career has culminated in this one moment, and I seriously can't believe this is my life right now. I am on my way to celebrate.

The Californian was among about 220 applicants. She made the cut to become one of 10 finalists, evaluated based on their work, their commitment to a Detroit experience and interviews. Hers was via Skype.

Writing excerpt: 'My aversion had turned into nostalgia'

This is from an essay posted last April by Zócalo Public Square, a not-for-profit "daily ideas exchange" site.

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Armenian groceries make "me feel rooted, grounded, part of a community," writes Liana Aghajanian.

I dreaded Saturday mornings when I was growing up. That’s because while other kids were waking up to watch cartoons or making movie plans with friends (so I imagined), I was ritually dragged into the Armenian markets of Los Angeles by my mother, who bought food as if it was a competitive sport.

“Get up, we’re going shopping,” she would say. She never meant at the Vons or Ralphs grocery chains, where you could buy waffles and milk.

She meant at one of the markets in Glendale or Burbank or Pasadena where I could find huge rolls of fresh unleavened lavash bread that amounted to double my height when fully spread across a table. A market with yogurt soda, a carbonated, fermented drink seasoned with pepper and mint. . . .

I didn’t understand the importance of these markets. I didn’t get that there was a communal hunger they were trying to satiate. . . .

Whenever we went to the markets, I hid behind the cart as my mom pushed through aisles of olive oil, rose petal jam and pomegranate paste. I wanted to run away every time I caught a glimpse of the “evil eye trinkets” hanging by the check-out counter—talismans to be hung in homes, cars, and even on baby diapers, to ward off misfortune.

Donkey oil instead of Neosporin

In the winter, you could find cow’s feet soup, a delicacy that traditionally helped Armenians survive the cold season, even though there was no real need for it in the year-round temperateness of L.A. Donkey oil from the Armenian-populated village of Gharaghan, Iran, was prized as a medicine akin to Neosporin.

Patriotic songs blared over megaphones installed throughout the entire store and paintings of Mount Ararat, the biblical mountain that functions as a unifying symbol for Armenians across the world, loomed overhead. The smell of pickled cucumbers in plastic jars permeated through the store, mixing in with the scent of ground coffee that produced the thick mud-like drink consumed at every family gathering.

When I was young, the entire experience was overwhelming. The stores we frequented were so compact that there was nowhere to hide from the wandering grandmothers who tried to talk to me as if I was their own progeny. The Saran-wrapped lamb’s head at the deli counter among bologna and mortadella sausages haunted me, and I often begged to be allowed to wait in the car.

As I grew up, the shopping trips gradually stopped. I was busy refining the American part of my Armenian-American identity. When I entered adulthood, however, I began to return to the same markets I had built up such a strong aversion to — and noticed that my aversion had turned into nostalgia.

A refuge amid the chaos

The markets were brimming with the same characters from my childhood, and I was glad to see the haggling grandmothers I once feared. I loaded up my cart with tarragon soda, Medjool dates, and pickled shallots — the purchases of someone who had been born in the Middle East, grew up in a diaspora and visited post-Soviet Armenia as often as she could. I offered to run errands there for my mom.

Soon I began to visit the markets even when I didn’t immediately need anything. I wanted to be there, in the midst of the chaos, squeezing between the men and women on a quest to find the best cucumber, to soak in the spice-laden atmosphere. This market wasn’t a place I wanted to escape from anymore, but its own kind of refuge.

The Armenian markets became a place that transported me from the mundane of every day life. I looked forward to asking whoever was at the deli counter, in Armenian, if he could please give me a half-pound of the most flavorful Feta cheese I had ever tasted.

Going through the cramped maze was far more appealing than large, slick corporate supermarkets where everything is strategically positioned to make you buy something. It made me feel rooted, grounded, part of a community that I didn’t even understand I belonged to until I was back in the chaos of the market as a young adult.

On a recent trip there I overheard a young girl helping her grandfather read English labels on wines imported from Armenia, where wine cultivation has remerged as an exciting industry. She read several labels out loud until he finally made his choice and then off they went to check out. I envied the ease with which she wore her multiple identities.



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