Los Angeles: The Capital of the Armenian Immigrant Community in the Twenty-First Century

Abstract

This article is an introduction to the subject of Armenian Americans in Los Angeles, both within the broader context of the diaspora and a narrower one, presenting an analysis of the mutual relations between the Armenian community and the city. In the twenty-first century, Los Angeles has become home to the second largest urban population of Armenians in the world after Yerevan. It consists of three main groups: descendants of the first immigrants, refugees from the Middle East, and most recently, the so-called “Soviet” Armenians and immigrants from the Republic of Armenia. The construction of the Armenian Americans Museum will begin in the near future. The mission of the institution will be to document the experience of Armenian migration and to support the maintenance of ethnic identity among the next generations of the diaspora. In Glendale, an ethnoburb of Los Angeles, Armenian Americans make up 40 percent of the population. A significant proportion of the administrative decision-makers there come from the Armenian diaspora. The city is not only the informal second capital city for the Armenian global community, but also an incubator for its cultural project; in particular, it is a center of the Armenian music industry.