MFA Creative Writing Graduate Jack Chavoor Writes Thesis on Ghosts of the Genocide

Carina Tokatian
Staff Writer

“The ghosts, the people from our Armenian past, the things they endured, the unprecedented suffering and losses they bore, as well as their will to overcome—all of that shaped our outlook and our lives” stated Jack Chavoor, a May 2020 graduate of Fresno State’s MFA Creative Writing Program.

Since the very beginning of his thesis, Chavoor decided to compile all his essays under the title, Ghosts of the Genocide. He selected this name because he felt that the “ghosts,” Armenians’ ancestors and the trials and successes they faced, have impacted their descendants. However, the title does not necessarily mean that each of his essays pivot around the theme of the Genocide. Instead, Chavoor believes that “the thesis begins in the United States with the question, ‘What are you?’ and ends in Armenia with the words, ‘Hos em. I am here.’”

Prior to his enrollment in the MFA Program, Chavoor was an English teacher at Roosevelt High School for thirty years. He acknowledged his Assyrian-Armenian heritage as part of the reason he initially decided to study English. “My family and Armenians in general are storytellers,” said Chavoor. “So, what is an English major? Reading, writing, and talking about stories. This was very appealing to me.”

After retiring, Chavoor had thought of taking some writing or photography classes or trying another educational outlet. But his friend and former colleague from Roosevelt High School, Megan Bohigian, encouraged him to enroll in the MFA program at Fresno State. After meeting one of the program professors, John Hales, Chavoor grew confident in his own desire to join the program. Hales was not Chavoor’s only influential teacher, however, as he praised all his MFA instructors, emphasizing how “the professors that I had in the Program were not just highly skilled and knowledgeable, but personable and encouraging as well.”The MFA program was by no means a simple three-year process, however. Chavoor decided to take things slow and space out his classes over five years, so that he could also enjoy his retirement. In the beginning, Chavoor turned to his journals from high school, college, and teaching as inspiration for his writing. Still, midway through the Program, Chavoor revealed how he was “tired and stuck.” It was during this period that he was reminded of the photo his daughter, Kathleen, captured on his first day of school. He thought to himself, “I can’t quit. She took that picture.” Therefore, he decided to begin experimenting over the summer with writing short vignettes about his Armenian experiences. After returning to school and receiving positive feedback from his classmates, he decided to travel down this new road.

Chavoor acknowledged writers such as Nerses Sarian, Abraham Hartunian, Peter Balakian and Mark Arax as some of the major Armenian authors he was influenced by. He also enjoyed reading the works of William Saroyan. “Reading Saroyan is like a favorite uncle sitting next to you, telling stories, stated Chavoor. “That was my model: a relaxed, conversational narrative.”On the other hand, there are some aspects of his writing that distinguish his style from Saroyan’s. For example, Chavoor’s stories are better labeled as essays and contain a variation of both short fragments and developed stories. Some of these essays maintain storylines: incidents from his childhood, his father’s sayings, or family stories that have been passed on for generations. Other essays of his are plotless. They may reference events in Armenian and Assyrian history such as Queen Semiramis of Assyria or the ancient Armenian city of Ani. ‘Who we are, after all,” surmised Chavoor, “is a collection of experiences, stories, things we believe and things we learn along the way.”

Chavoor grew up in a diverse mixture of cultures, all of which have influenced his writing. After once being told by his father that he is 75% Assyrian, 25% Armenian, and 100% American, Chavoor commented, “Now, Dad was good at math; he was an accountant. And these numbers don’t work, but they are accurate.” In many ways, Chavoor was quite immersed in the American culture—its language, food, music, sports, and literature. As for his Assyrian identity, Chavoor could look to his paternal family including his grandfather, Jacob Chavoor, one of the founding members of the Assyrian Benevolent Association of Los Angeles. And when it came being an Armenian, he had acquired a deeper cultural identity as he began surrounding himself with Armenian friends at church as a teenager.

Chavoor admitted that “My grandmothers and great-aunts and uncles did not talk to me and my siblings, and our cousins about the Turks or the Genocide very much.” While Chavoor had fortunately grown up knowing his great-grandmother and grandmother, he was not originally aware of their testimony. What Chavoor does recall from his childhood is sitting by the TV as a six or seven-year-old and watching a Western show with his great-grandmother, Hannah Sadoian. Upon seeing a caravan of wagons in the show, Chavoor observed how “she suddenly became very animated, but I didn’t speak Armenian and she spoke very little English.” His grandmother Ruth, Hannah’s daughter, came over and told him in English, “She wants you to know that in the time before cars she traveled in wagons like that.” “I had no way of knowing that she was referring to their escape from Turkey,” he stated, “and that was all I knew for the next 50 years.”In high school and college, Chavoor began learning about the Genocide. It was not until 2011, however, when he learned of his great-grandmother, Hannah, and his grandmother, Ruth’s story. Just as he and his wife were about to paint, Chavoor recalled tossing one of Ruth’s journals on the table. It ironically opened to the only passage in which his grandmother shares her Genocide story.

In 1895, Hannah and five-year-old Ruth were living with Hannah’s in-laws in Harput, Turkey. Meanwhile, Hannah’s husband was living in the United States. Only a few weeks before the Hamidian massacres occurred in Harput, a Turkish neighbor had convinced Hannah and Ruth to remain in his attic for a little while. When the attack occurred a few weeks later, Chavoor mentioned how Hannah had seen her sister’s house lit on fire from the attic window. She passed out. It took over a year for the proper paperwork to be arranged for her and Ruth to leave Harput. When the time of their departure arrived, Hannah was also to transport twenty orphans to an orphanage in Istanbul, a journey of over 600 miles by wagon. From Istanbul, the two took a boat to France and by 1897, they made their way to the United State where Hannah’s husband had been living.

“Hannah’s experience is the cornerstone of the thesis,” Chavoor noted. “Who we are? How did we become who we are? Those are the questions I approach in the thesis, and the answers in some ways, start with Hannah 1895.” From what Chavoor learned, one conclusion he has come to accept is that “the Turks a hundred years ago did despicable, loathsome, evil things; on the other hand, a Turk hid my great-grandmother and her daughter in his house for two weeks and saved their lives.” Because of this, Chavoor recognized how “there are Turks today who believe that nothing ever happened, but there are also some who know the truth.”In October of 2019, Chavoor had the opportunity to travel to Turkey with his wife, Grace. There, he found more inspiration for his essays included in his thesis. He commented how the trip felt like completing something when he arrived in Harput 122 years after his great-grandmother had left. “Everything before that was stories,” he explained, “but standing where both sides of my family stood, seeing the one stubborn wall—all that was left of what was Euphrates College, which my great-grandfather helped build, well, that was like finding the origins or a kind of confirmation of the story.”

This past year, Chavoor’s thesis was nominated as “Outstanding Thesis” from Fresno State’s MFA program. He wishes to publish his thesis someday with the hope that “it will resonate with Armenian-Americans.”

For example, he mentioned how he believes his experiences “will have some parallel to their own experiences, like looking for Armenian names on the end credits of movies, or the wonderful smells of an Armenian deli, or singing the Hayr Mer.” At the same time, Chavoor would like to see his experiences influence non-Armenians. He hopes they may draw the conclusion “that awful things happen and we all may respond in different and complicated ways, and that miraculous, amazing things also happen that we call God, luck, or sheer will, and perhaps all three.”