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Welcome to the new books network. Hello. Welcome to the new books in History Channel of the New Books Network Podcast. I am your host, Ari Barbalette.
Today I'm honored to engage in dialogue with Fartan Mattyasian. He is a diasporin Armenian translator editor and historian. He is currently the executive director of the Eastern Peralacy of the Armenian Apostolic Church in New Yorkan Book, review editor of the Armenian interview. Today we will discuss his newly published book, The Color of Choice, The Armenians and the Politics of Race in the United States in Germany, 1890-1945, published in Pottermore, Germany, by Brill Sconic 2025.
Fartan, it's an honor to be in dialogue with you. Thank you, Ari. For the rest of the month, I am going to introduce you to the conversation. To begin, please tell us about yourself.
Where did you grow up? What formative events in your life catalyzed the scholar you would later become? I was born in Wonta Biga, Uruguay, and grew up in BoraSitis, Argentina. I studied from the University of WontaSitis, and then I lived there until 2000, in the United States.
Although my initial salvation was in economics, I studied accounting at the University. At the same time, from the age I was interested in the other in the Armenian, because of my advantage, and this led me to embrace the Armenian studies as an art, art, art, research, besides my work. And what started as a hobby became a professional award. As a good day, later on, in the past, I went to the United States.
I obtained the doctorate from the Institute of History of the Armenian Science Research for the Armenian, which is a dissertation about the Armenian community of Argentina between the two weeks. But of course, my interests are not probably about that far to be a community, but to extend to Armenian Institute itself. I also want to know, sometimes secondary, sometimes primary, basic school history or foreign leadership. So I am shifting back and forth between history and literature all the time, and doing different kinds of research in both films, about different periods and different issues.
So my misstep of publications, just making one of the most inclusive research in the newsroom, but also also writing to people, others are possibly more than you. What inspired you to prepare this book, What Message Do You Hope to Convene-Readers? This membership came when I started the United States, and I had my first encounter with the American paperwork and invasive way that Grace was mentioned throughout the place. Every one of my students had a similar point to asking for what place I was, which was something that I had never seen before, because in the South American, the Indian, we only asked for the National League to leave such cities of sheep, or plus place, or country of products.
So this question of Grace also, but it seems that in a sense, it's fortunately to rethink, okay, what place I should write? What place I am, even so is, because it was a mix of skin colors, and the ethnicities, and something else, under which of both. So this led me to start turning, I had a basic idea about the issue, but it forced me, or the interesting point of starting to engage in some bits with the issue, and learn a lot about American history over the past centuries, or one half century especially. And the little by little, this led me also to the idea of writing this book, which was an issue that hadn't been cuckered before, where only partial studies of some of the issues had engaged within the book, but there was no new account of their whole story.
And because this was not only the American part, but there was also the German part, and both parts were related to each other, which sent a sense because of the issue of space, which was about the white race in America, and the other one that wasn't about the so-called Ariel race in Germany and Europe. So I decided to bring them together and consent a book about the subject, and try to force Wasser not to, and exhaust to the book, because I wasn't able to, in looking to solve many archives that were out of one information, but at least to offer the guideline for two children soon. What are the primary themes in your book? What story and stories does your book tell?
There's a basic story, which is a kind of headline of that straight moment through it, is that that is that harmonious, have kind of forgotten that especially, or have overlooked that especially, about how they were subject to discrimination, or native issues, or whatever they were in the past centuries, not only in their own language, but also when they started migrating to other countries, particularly in some places of Europe, the Middle East, and this is a kind of pattern that we see everywhere, and when we started to get sources and the testimonies, the discussions of non-American sources, you see that the same words or the same arguments being brought in the U.S. And this is a subject of discrimination, that was, it had its main manifestations in the way that alumnus were a big means, but also also in German before and during the Nazi version, and as a result also, in a new model, particularly in World War II, in those countries, which were Nazi occupation, or were Nazi sultanate, so you see the spell that I don't start pretending that. How does your research recontextualize the history of anti-Armenism? I think that that's something that I started seeing everywhere when I was reading for this book, I was searching for this book, and the world is lifted, I had the hard time to pinpoint the world, I'm not sure that I came up with a best solution, but most approximate the relation to how to board this phenomenon, because I believe that, of course, without reaching the heights of anti-Semitism, I do believe that there was a clear pattern of anti-Armenism as an ideological matter, not just a matter of someone taking a position against the enemy news, but this was more a matter of establishing certain concepts, hoping to conceive ideas against the enemy news, and to have the peace all over the place, they went from one source to the other, from one source to the other, from one source to the other, from one country to the other, so they looked at as a sort of general pattern, not a kind of isolated, densities and isolated premises.
So I believe that I have been able to show that that pattern, and to keep a context, why Armenians were considered in different ways, I mean, there was a certain number of keywords and concepts of dehumanizing them, or just diminishing them in the eyes of others, and you can find pages and pages, and even book after book, and it's not against Armenians alone, but where there are chapters, entire chapters about Armenians, and with a clear, remaining purpose. So I believe I have been able to show that pattern, which is, of course, considered as or linked by sense, it's connected with the general pattern of the same system as it came up in the past centuries, especially in Western society. What is your book's contribution to Armenian intellectual history in the 20th century? I think that if there is a contribution, this is a subject that doesn't belong to Armenian scholars, she doesn't touch them on it, and talking specifically about Armenian scholarship in Armenian.
Except for a few articles I published in Armenian before you spoke, when I was working on some of the chapters, I wrote articles, or basically I translated my drafts or certain chapters into Armenian, and I published them, other than my articles, I'm actually writing the last, you know, no research on this issue, very little mentions here, or there are very isolated without an action context, and I believe that probably because Armenian scholars tend to think of this subject as something that was upside, Armenian is certain, in a sense, but I do believe that like other issues, this is an issue that we know for that to study, but since I am trying to explain the search, or to research the identity, they show we've been in the context of Armenian soil, there have been a few scholars, Armenian scholars who have passed out on some of the issues in this book, but begin it hasn't been something in the system. So I hope the book will help people more engage in the book's vision. Comment on the tendency to assume that Armenians had Jewish characteristics, or were Jewish-like, where did this come from, how widespread was this? I think it was quite widespread.
It was a matter of making or creating certain similarities between both people, even though not necessarily there is a, and of course there was this belief that to certain nation or to certain ethnicity are responding to certain physical characteristics. So, which is not necessary, of course, we all know that we can find people of different color of here, different languages of skin, different eye color within the same population, that applies to inner produced Armenians, there is no such thing as a single physical characteristic. So this support similarity led to imply that if there are physical similarities, then there should be psychological or for example, spiritual similarities. So this created this kind of confusion between, I mean, as some truth to the point that I have found several cases from the 17th century on measures of Armenian Jews, or sometimes more frequently than Jewish Armenians, and so on and so forth, until easily the 1930s, and possibly there could be a name, I mean, there are a few even from one word two more so, but not far further than one word two, I don't think that such a spool of thought has decreased intensity after one word two.
But again, I do believe that this is a result of a totally misplaced understanding of how people are either physically or otherwise, and that's the result. How does your study shed new light on the history of Armenian Jewish relations? I think that I think it is at least it establishes some more point of contact, I mean, there are episodes where both people have been close and related to be done throughout history or other manifestations. I think that this is an EPC and an initial light in a visual way in several contexts, because I have tried to put together, it's not a final collection of similarities between both people, but I did a good example of examples, and of course I had to patch short because of obvious intertorial cloud service, and cut short on how much material I presented, I was more like I put a written out, but the subject was wide enough and it wasn't a matter of an limit, the number of paintings I could do, so I had to make movements to myself.
But I believe that this information that is convinced in the book, it will give some more put for thought regarding the relationship between Armenian subjects. What were the distinctive features of British anti-Armenism in the 19th century and the early 20th century? Well, the basis was, I believe, sort of a pro-Turkish, understandably, a pro-Turkish attitude in the 18th century, which was part of British political interests in the Middle East, and in that context, the pro-Turkish attitude of the British government was also selected in the Biden-Danghansia, in the communications, sometimes following the line of some government, and in very few cases trying to challenge it. That's a current of opinion, though the Armenians as quite close to the Jews, been slowed something that was underlying one time after time, and also trying to put them together with other people in the same bag.
They shared the same characteristics of being into a man in lending and exploiting the other people, some of them, because they were the merchant class in the Ottoman Empire, then they were the ones who were exploiting the two soldiers who were not merchants, and they were not running the money lenders because they were running from the meeting from so on. So, Armenians, Jews, and Greeks, the three-dan, and Turkish, are the most legal communities in the Ottoman Empire, where the bad guys were the good ones. So, this was a basic model with British plot, built up, all sorts of negative ideas about the negative people. What stereotypes about Armenians circulated in Germany and the United States?
How were American and German stereotypes about Armenians similar and different? Those stereotypes were more frequently found if we put a comparison country in this country, where most of Germany, in Germany, and in the US, it was mostly derived from whatever literature it was read by Chinese and Chinese, particularly in the East Coast. So, it wasn't as pervasive as a white spread as in Germany. In the case of Germany, this was coming from at least from the 17th and 18th century.
There was that pattern existed from that time, but it was more developed in the 19th century, especially after the initiation of Germany in 1871, and even more after Germany in the 1880s started being interested in the Ottoman Empire. So, the German interesting Jotam Empire and the pro-Turkish policy of Germany, the Musikir, the son of Sennigarit, with Great Britain, brought forward, again, a kind of official policy or official thought about Armenians, which was very white and spread in the press, and not only in the political and the political levels, but later on, we see this in the German military, which is serving in the Ottoman army during World War I and in the German genocide. We see this dismissive thought about Armenians repeating their old patterns of being, you know, money, netbers, the receivers, cheaters, et cetera, et cetera. And this is something that is going to be inherited by the public and then in that situation.
This is kind of thoughts are all over the place, one can say from the second tribe of 1871, until the end of the third tribe in 1945, regardless of the doubt. So, obviously, different governments, the German Empire, the Weimar Republic, and the Nazi regime, the same kind of thought. So, the difference with the right distance, it was that this was much more expanded in Germany than the US. The US, you find some not many racist or international scholars who write in this missing way or that are really about Armenians, but it's not something very white-spent, generally speaking.
But it's present there, the media from being in the 1821, meaning the media to the point where there is a great way for immigration, Eastern Europe, South Eastern Europe, and Western Asia, where they are known as well as in war. Van dual casino is calling all love Island fans, with the exclusive debut of the first ever Love Island Slocking, Love Island Real Vives. Spin for bombshell wins and experience all the island drama, exclusively on Van dual casino, download the app today. Please play responsible, 90 plus and physically located in Ontario.
If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or the gambling or some of close to you, please contact connectsontario.ca. To what degree did the Nazis perceive Armenians as being semi-t? We would say that they identified them with their truth because of their physical characteristics, it was before that system in the existing. This was part of that education that they mentioned before, so it wasn't an advantage of both physical and psychological characteristics.
So because of their misconception about the divisions of languages that they became identified with race, we should even better recall that when we talk about areas and semi-t? First of all, Arian was one alternative but a long name for the European languages and semi-t is also a name for languages and not for the construction of a race. So they were not, of course, from early on it was demonstrated that Armenian was an European language, something modern was not about language but it was about race. Since they were considered to be in physical and similar to Jews and we have here an association of Jewishness which plays, which of course is another distortion.
So this led to the belief that Armenians should be semi-t, but of course until 1939, after the 1970s, when Armenians were able to speak of their own, they were able to speak of their own 100% pre-army. How did Germans who believed in Arianism perceive Armenians? What racial characteristics did they ascribe to Armenians? Of course, Germans knew that Armenians were not worldwide and they were here, like the Italian bollings of the speech, but of course in Germany or German countries themselves, a good part of the population wasn't even shared with the Middle.
But they also said they simply said the circles of their Nazi regime and their independence. They were believed well in the French beliefs that Armenians were sent, and this belief existed at the end of World War II. And there were cases where we weren't working in writing, even despite the existence of the nuclear banking for the Canadian. And they should be, they should be some kind of policy, or maybe smarting with Armenians, etc.
There was some kind of policy about that, especially about our connecting for the faith. How did Armenians of different identities and backgrounds view Arianism? Can you comment on the spectrum of opinion among Armenians toward Arian theories and Arianist ideologies? That's an interesting subject which has not been explored because there is not that much written about it.
I mean, they were some writings about it, but in a systematic way, they were Armenians simply, or replicating the thinking that were going forward in Europe. Let's say Armenians also used the World Race as a senior nation, ruffling from the Indian AD and Wilt Pass, 1945. I can't, I have seen the writing, the offensive, the Armenian race, in the sense of the Armenian nation, even in the right-naves. So, that on one side, on the other hand, there was some discussion of the Arian race and mentions of it, but I have even compiled a list of textbooks and manuals.
And manuals of Armenian geography or anthropology, or let's not let's say, in Armenian published between 1850 and 1915. And there was not a single Armenian of all of this at that time. Most of those were simply translations or adaptations from European manuals into Armenian, and they had a few lines about Armenians belonging to the White race, or speaking to European or Arian language, but nothing necessarily in our own people. Just after World War I, it's where there is some kind of anthropological research and anthropology as such among Armenian Souths, in the navy.
But the discussion about Armenian speaking, Arian, some kind of thing, other than many few groups or archbacles of the subject that helped mention the approach of Eastern or Eastern or Eastern, it wasn't that important. How does your research assess allegations, claims and accusations pertaining to Nazi Armenian collaboration during World War II? It wasn't my subject per se, but because it was related to the subject of the Nazi Egyptian farming, as I was a little bit too counteracted to the perception, I had to touch that point. I tried to show that the minority of Armenians were engaged in Nazis in Germany and outside German.
They were mostly moved by the need to do something to protect their own people, rather than an interest into the Naziism itself, or people who even can't even answer from being one. Especially people who were not even German citizens, most of the cases. And they were just people who collaborated because they were interested in their own possibility of German victory in the war. And what could be the consequence of that big one or Armenia, which was at the time of Sunday to five.
So in case of the mice of the Sunni Union, what could have been the consequence and how they could have done to protect Armenians in Armenia, in case of Nazi victory or the other tribe, is a good contribution from the liberation of Armenians from the Soviet Union. Of course, there were big lists there, mostly Nazis who were not that busy with the mobins, that's okay, it's a big area, we have to know them, and it's a big area, or even to other independent people under German, international, German, and so on. That's an absolute story. The idea that the collaboration and the collaboration, that seems stemmed from an ideological standpoint, in my opinion, was a bit too stupid.
And you comment on Armenian experiences in France under the German upkeep, the Vichy regime? That was a relatively short period of time. It was a class of sale before Germany in 1940 and sold the German regime lastly five years in the last week. And of course, Armenians tried to do their best to avoid any kind of travels, either with the inter-michia area, or the so-called things on, or the German occupation camps.
There were cases when they had engaged with the concentration between Armenians and Jews, or to demonstrate that they were not friends. But most of the time they came up, they came up okay, so to speak. Of course, they were sick of sassism where the French bureaucracy put a deal in the right way, and what Armenians were. But of course, we are not sleep-splatious, and Armenians, part of them were just sustained throughout the German occupation.
Of course, the case of North American history where our art of the Nazis, our French ancestors, and of course, fought against Nazis. But that wasn't, it might be, it was a significant number, but it was a majority of the community of the community, both as a government, a government, and a human place. And then tried to, you know, hold the sheets of the bomber in line of obedience to the state. Can you comment on the perceptions and experiences of Armenians under Benito Mussolini?
Can you comment on their treatment? Can you comment on their stereotypes pertaining to Armenians in fascist Italy under Benito Mussolini? The Armenian community, Italy was a very small one. It has been historically a very small one.
The same operator who praised us with the community, Austria, but eventually, other than France and the Bylchas, the numbers of Armenians were raised, but even in Germany, they were no one down 500 in the Middle East. In Italy, they were roughly 1,000, two-county, those Armenians were already majority poor, working on the citizens. That was the audition that Armenians were at the beginning of World War II, they were in danger because of a good number of them, not being in Italians, not having up to the other side. So Armenians were not that kind of ego problem for Italians, or for the Italian regime until the third unit, when he started the German pressure passed the Russian law in Italy, and at some point, at the beginning, the Armenians were under some risk of being catalogued as not Aryans, but on the one hand, we made publications and they made sure that they were Aryans, and by 1940, that danger had passed after the foreign government passed the decline, where the economically-sped Armenian people were in the beds.
Though the issue was roughly the end of the pre-war period and the beginning of the war period. Our fascist Italian views of Armenians, similar to and different from German, Nazi and Aryanist views. There was not a consistent view of Armenians among Italians, there were these kinds of beliefs that insulted Serpans, that Armenians were wearing on the same boat, Russian speaking, but that wasn't very, very consistent with Stépé. Because the Russian issue in Italian was kind of artificial, there was not an issue of race before the United States' aviator group himself.
Even the Italian and psychopedia party in 1985, they had a statement that there was no Aryan race, so this is something that came up later as I said under German pressure. We have to remember that in Italian there was a very assimilative Jewish community. The assuiting to the point that they had, you know, not their Jewish names, they had to be stayed, their names, their servants are Italian. So that community was not quote unquote a danger for the state, but it was again German pressure that brought Mussolini into the point of having a Russian adult and later on, going into the point of being a member of the nation.
Can you say something about Croatian attitudes and perceptions of Armenians? How did the Ustashe treat Armenians, what status did Armenians have under anti-pabolish? How were these similar to and different from German and Italian conceptions and constructions toward Armenians? How were these similar to and different from German and Italian policies toward and treatment of Armenians?
I might because of the curious and curious states. I came across Croatian, Armenian, is by reading as many sources that are available in English, which are mostly more free offers for our women in English. So interesting, there are two interesting things to get. First of all, the kingdom, there was a very small community in the south of the South, and most of them were not applied.
And in the world, there was more than 500 Armenians than the Goshnania. But none was counted in English, but there was no Armenian. The cognition of the kingdom of Goshnania was mostly in Serbia and in the northern Macedon. Not in Goshnania, at least I have a healthy census, a few cities of the most likely in the southern region.
So there were an Armenian situation, but there was a Croatian anti-Arminian policy, which was that the Sasha and Gjolabs considered Armenians and other Balkan people as a group of people who were because of their natural actions and their physical characteristics. They were not kind of a sickled class, and they were not to refuse among people. And this was part of the sort of currency to put them as a foil against the Servius. Because as we go, the main issue that Croatia has had in the world in the world, in the Sasha and Gjolabs, was with Serbia's countries.
And they mentioned the Armenians in the context of what they were and they got to say about the Servius. And this was part again of the same, and they are in the next pattern, but in different circumstances, I don't have systematic information about what was the evolution or the fluition thinking about Armenians in the Indian support world. They have two resonances, but not complete set. Because of course most of that, the first is the operation, and they should be probably depressed.
But the fact is that when the World War II World comes up and acts, it occupies a new Mesmevia and there is the position of the kingdom and the independent state of Croatia is pro-plane. So one, roughly a month after the state, such as state is pro-plane, there is no pass, which is more or less copied from the Arianos German. But the interesting thing is that the number of races and peoples who are declared non-Arianians, and Armenians remain non-Arian as in the end of the war. But even on the articles written in both years, against Armenians, or not necessarily against Armenians, but with the negative way again, because they are doing anti-Sergio, or even though they are non-Arianians, who didn't wait for stuff.
So that's a very curious story, because it's the only case where the German model and the Italian model doesn't work, because if Germans and Italians don't recognize Armenians, are in exploration deal. And you comment on Armenian experiences in Romania during World War II on the Holocaust? So, I mean, as in Romania, where the important number compared with other communities, except the one in France, but of course in the proportion to the population, so contrary to the countries, they were in English, they were less than 1% of the population, but they had a very old tradition in the country. They were with the government, they had been Romania since they were Middle Ages, even though that Romanian population had been in the native of time.
But the new community that came after genocide, they were mostly people without citizenship, because they had been declared so they are an Ottoman or citizenship, but they were not political, so they were probably considered to be a publicist, and they were not in the country. So they were a bad thing, but they didn't have a home that's recognized them, so they knew with what Europe's created by the Chinese, by the Norwegian people, and the Swedish official, which was called Nazi Passipites. So those Nazi Passipites allowed them to travel, and they served as a kind of documentation for them, but they were, they didn't have the possibility to become that case from the Asian citizens. So they were, they were, that population, or near population of the so-called apartheid population, worse than spies, because since they didn't have a country, they were, they were assimilated to the peace of the Jews, and were also seen as people who did not have a country.
And because the areas like Jews were also engaged in commerce, and they were very successful in their commercial activities, some sectors of the population, especially in the Iranians, they saw them as a danger to the spiritual and identity of the country. And then of course there were problems, especially in World War II, where Romania took the site of Germany, and Germany tried to pressure Romania to board the British population, and there were some incidents where the Jews were involved, but most of the time they were able to make it, to make it to the end of the world. Can you comment on Armenian variances of segregation in the United States? In a great sense, though, even though there were isolated cases where Armenians were discriminated, especially in the East Coast, the most prevalent cases of weak and poetic segregation happened in Fresno by the former, where there was an importance, not by number, but by its importance in the economy of town, and the San Joaquin body.
So that community was subject to discrimination and segregation due to the policy of the application of the racial coordinates. And this needs to be explained in some detail, because it's something that happened both importantly in Fresno, but it was in paper, it was in several states, even in Washington, D.C. So the racial coordinate or the restricting the racial coordinate was exactly, it was a cross that was happening in the deeds of housing, where the fire was committed to not sending or renting the house that was purchasing, do people belong to this or that race or ethnicity? Let's say the covenant could break that thing, it was not going to sell the house, even in the African American, to any Jew, any Armenian, any inhabitants of the former Ottoman Empire, which was a way of mentioning Armenians, but sometimes it also involved the females and other ethnicities.
And this same policy also existed in other places, whether there was an important ammunition, like in Detroit or much less than in Washington, but also in places where there was not, for instance, Seattle, Portland, and some other locations. But the most important must be a case once in Fresno, because this policy was in the states established red line that Alignes, so they were limited to needing a certain sector of the city without being able to buy houses in more crossfills parts of the city. And this happened, of course, anti-1948, when the Supreme Court of the United States, in Arguilin, declared an anti-conscious constitutioner, in Russia, the Covenant, but of course, those covenants were not aware in the papers, they could still be used, there was a new point there, and that people lasted for 120 years, but in the meantime, after 1948, that's the application of racial covenants started in the certain year in the Indian Fresno or the other English too. So that policy of segregation against the sub-neas was mostly gone by the time, also the city rights movement in the system.
In what ways did Armenians and Jews face similar forms of discrimination, bigotry, and racism in the United States? In what ways did they experience different forms of inclusion? The racial covenants was the most significant case for Armenians, on the other hand, one difference was that it wasn't the case of Jews, but Armenians had twice the word questioned by the US government, regarding their whiteness, and twice in 1999 and 1924, 25, they had to go to a federal court and demonstrate that they were being allowed to be white race, because that demonstration was capital for people being citizens. So, the United States, the acquisition of citizenship was contingent with the whiteness of the person.
You need to be a three white person, you need to be able to be a citizen. There was an exception in 1966, for Afinfana, but after the initial of the initiative, they were a couple of other exceptions for Indians later, and native Americans after the Kingdom. But in the meantime, Armenians had to do that demonstration, because otherwise they could be considered second-class residents, like it happened to the Japanese and to the Indians from India, who in 1921, were to be known white by the Nachtog. So, the court had an Indian, or even slip of their citizenship, and of course, this created a situation that lasted until this was changed in 1962.
The special base situation was changing after 15. Our Armenians impacted by the Immigration Act of 1924 in the United States. Basically, the integration of Armenians in the United States became a son of a trip, because the quotas that were established in that year reduced their members in the quotas of the country, that someday they came from where they had citizenship or origin, like Turkey or Russia. So, in the following 20 years, there were just 7,000 Armenians integrating to the United States.
When in the previous two decades, there had been tens of thousands, and especially in 2020, it was a period of most important immigration from Europe, the World of West, and the Armenians in Europe and with the Asia were a neighbor come to the US, because the quotas were very easily filled. So, they were unable to get to an exactly, and most of those Armenians tried to go. They had to go to South America, they went to East East, for instance, out of my family, ended up in South America, and either Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, but also Cuba and Mexico. They went to Cuba and Mexico, even though it's made small numbers, just with the hope of one way or another trying to get to the United States.
So, in the making it clear, between 1924 and 1965, Armenians were practically forbidden, despite the small numbers that were able to enter the United States, without any other national interest, especially those coming from Eastern Europe, South Eastern Europe, Western Asia, and also, of course, Asia itself, and Chinese were already forbidden, but also worked out for the case for Japanese and its analysis. And you congment the legal case, United States versus Taptos Cartosion, why was it notable, what specifically transpired? As I mentioned before, this was the third in the sea, so test cases that the US government, especially the Department of Labor, which was the one that, at the time, directed the pure of mitigation and visualization. This was a certain test case where different nationalities were taken to court and taken up the Supreme Court to have a clear ruling about them being white or not.
In the first two cases, the Japanese and the Indians went up all the way to the Supreme Court, only to be in the city. In the Iranian case, the most important thing is that this person, Taptos Cartosion, who was part of the court in the corridor, went to the 19th and 17th in the court, in our citizenship, the court, we left out the engagement in citizenship, even though we told him 100%, which judge was 100% sure, and almost immediately the government challenged him. And the understanding was that this was a dis case, and this case would not endear their government and the Armenian community came to understand that after this ruling, the case would be appealed, and the opinion would both in the Supreme Court to have a final decision on the Supreme Court. What happened was that after the trial in 1924, in May, 1924, even though some parts of the trial would be positioned quite exactly before the invasion of the proceedings itself, the testimony of the Iranian were convincing enough to be judged, who actually, if he's ruling, in June 1925, because of different problems of the judge, in many cases, it would be a lot of cases, so practically 14 months later, but we judge the rule that Armenians, all the proofs that they had brought, they took that in the white race, they were easily as enabled to the American population, and there was no issue about granting them to citizenship.
What happened was that the arguments presented by the Armenians were so-called being seen that the General Attorney of the United States decided that it wasn't feasible and appeal, and going to the Supreme Court, that there was no chance that this trial would prosper in case of going to the Supreme Court, and this is how they decided not to move forward until we done appeal. There was never a declaration, a former declaration from the government that we lost, but there was a declaration from the government that they were not going to pursue the appeal. So this is how the case ended, and the interesting thing is that these strategies of cases ended with the Armenians, there was no case in the area, it's also been what they incontinent, and on the other hand, it's my contention that even though the federal government, the person of the Secretary of Labor, had promised the Armenians that this is a friendly case, but I am not sure that their ultimate case was somehow to have the Supreme Court coming up with a decision that was unfavourable to Armenians with some kind of hooked up argument. Can you comment on the Halya Jianji, 1909?
Why was it significant? The Halya Jianji case was the first insignificant part of the victim of that. This was a different time when the head of the Immigration Administration Service by itself decided he became a legal authority, and he decided that the population coming from western Asia, especially seniors, Armenians and Turks, were not white people, and he decided that because the Turks were polygamists and they belonged to the Mongol race, so Armenians and seniors also belonged to the Mongol race because they were taught. So in this case, because the networks were false, the equivalents between nationality and citizens were also citizens.
They were not the ultimate empire, it was a multi-party ethnic political organization, and they were different ethnicities in the Indian part. So the Armenians were taken to create their applications for citizenship for a challenge. They were taken to court to save up and into civilians. In the Armenian cases, various judges simply approved the applications, but in the case of the Halya Jianji and some other people who went together, they were four people, that's why I called Halya Jianji in short of the other names.
So in this case, which was in the Phaeron court in Boston, the judge, one day in one day trial, the judge gathered some evidence, that a few amicus, anakin's beliefs, and these are sent in the Armenians, and the judge slowly decided that Armenians were white. And on the other hand, by the meantime, the interesting thing is that because of the pressure that seniors had put on the government, and they had gone all the way up to the state department and the Secretary of Commerce, which at the time, the English service depended on the Secretary of Commerce. So the Secretary of Commerce had already determined to tell Richard Campan, who was ahead of the immigration service, that he should not deal with these kinds of things, he should take up to his own duties, and he shouldn't deal with these issues, especially with whether seniors, amineas, or elves, and Campan was forced to back up, but in the meantime, for some reason, even though he backed up in November 1909, the Armenian case went on, and in the case it was, I think it was in December 1999, more practically in the last case, in the cities of cases against Ottoman ethnicities in the 19th and 19th and all that. And because of these cases, amineas were okay for the next 16 years or so, until the takeover came up, presenting this came up in the late 19th.
Can you compare and contrast the allogion and cartosion cases, how were they similar and different to one another? The similarities is that in both cases, it was the whiteness of Armenian's question. I would say that the main difference is that even though in the halogen case there were some, there were several articles written in the Armenian press about these issues, and there was quite a bit of agitation also in many countries, but the community didn't react, even the halogen and the others didn't have a lawyer, they went to the court by themselves, they didn't have a lawyer, the community wasn't backing them up, there was no community organization in the back of the mark, support them, and the culture in the cartosion case happened in Oregon, but the community formed the communities in the vast, depending on your which took up fundraising, it took up the hiring, the best possible lawyers in New York and Oregon, the higher the best antiquologies, transpose and Roland Dixon from our colonial universities on our western perspective, so they collected and spent a lot of money, $36,000 at a time, which is $700,000 then, to support the case, because they came to the conclusion that if they lost the case, especially in that atmosphere in the 1920s, that would be very bad for Armenians, or one site where the cartosion proceedings went on in April, 1924, it was in those days that we act, the quarter act of 1924 was passed, so on one site with the country being close to the invasion, and on the other side, we started in a rust in case, becoming second-class citizens, their proxy prospects were very, very bad, so the community mobilized in 1924 when they were able to make it. What if anything is and was unique about the Armenians' experience and experiences in American legal and immigration history?
If we compare and contrast Armenians' experiences with other groups in American legal history and immigration history, what if anything stands out about their immediate experience? Well, the Armenian experience wasn't totally unique, even that in the matter of indignation, in the end they shared the state of other, of other, the ethnicities which were barbed, went to the country for four years, between 1924 and 1965, and this is something that is kind of forgotten, that they were racist, clearly racist, component, in this prohibition of immigration with certain groups, and I believe that this makes the entire subject, and be spoken very about in the present day, but on the other hand, on the other side, I would say that it's important that they share that experience, that it's not unique, because there is no question that even though they were able to overcome the challenge of against the right rules, it's citizenship, it is not less true that the fact that they were challenged also speaks volumes about policies that were in place over decades, and policies that tended to discriminate and dehumanize people, and they're not talking about Armenians' own. So it's hard to know, and it's hard to reflect on the fact that Armenians were also shared, that share, to say, even to trans-urban people ourselves, that share in those policies, which were not of course directly, probably against them, but at the time, the present where these kind of policies are not, as a rule, they can even accept Armenians, but they are directly against others, it's hard to remember what happened in the past, and in order to take some lessons from the present day, this is the main thing that we can have from that past, from this book, which is a book of history, that's about being too many times before the present day. As we enter dialogue today, can you kindly tell us where your time and attention have gone since completing this work?
As we bring our dialogue today to a close, can you tell us where your time and attention have gone since completing this research? Well, I'm trying to get into other projects that are happening there for a long time, and as I said at the beginning, my interest in history I'm quite a collective and a more becoming serious, so now I'm trying to complete a couple of projects about the project from the beginning, about the article stuff, the completion of articles, about the first department, for Armenian, about the beginning, about the week in the week in the afternoon, and then Spain, and several other projects, so those are growing by middle, but there are also articles on those in the main considerate setting. So I have been, I have been busy, and I always, by said, be busy, we have been playing projects at the end of the world, one after we added the sense. That was extraordinary.
As we entered dialogue today, I'd like to emphasize how thankful I am for your generous and erudite answers throughout the course of our dialogue. I'm overwhelmed with gratitude for your eloquence. Thanks to you, Adi again, for this opportunity to be titled about this book, and I'm always ready to use the future, something you have come from. Thank you, I would be humbled.
As we entered dialogue today, I'm signing off as Ari Barble at your host on the New Books and History Channel of the New Books Network podcast. Today I've been grateful to engage in a dialogue with Bartan Matyasiyan. Regarding his newly published book, The Color of Choice, The Armenians and the Politics of Rhys in the United States and Germany, 1890-2045, published in Paderborn, Germany by Brill Sconic 2025. Bartan Matyasiyan is a diasporan Armenian translator, historian, editor.
He is currently the Executive Director of the Eastern Peralacy of the Armenian Apple Solid Church in New York and book review editor of The Armenian Review. A Saver Ontario means more police and prosecutors making sure my card doesn't get stolen. It means building new jails to keep criminals behind bars. And it means there's no need to wear me when I play at the park.
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