WEBVTT - Impressions Of Armenia 0:00:14.240 --> 0:00:19.760 The Armenians became a sort of threat to the Ottoman rulers. 0:00:20.560 --> 0:00:23.800 They rounded all of the intellectuals, all of the potential 0:00:23.840 --> 0:00:28.800 community leaders, and executed them or exiled them. They disarmed 0:00:28.880 --> 0:00:33.080 the men, took their weapons, took their arms, and sent 0:00:33.159 --> 0:00:39.239 them to labor camps and to eventual death. What was 0:00:39.360 --> 0:00:43.360 left where the elderly women and children. They set them 0:00:43.360 --> 0:00:47.240 on marches. These were death marches, so they were sent 0:00:47.560 --> 0:00:58.360 to their deaths. So basically it is a government eradicating 0:00:58.480 --> 0:01:04.720 its own people. I think people find it so strange. Right, 0:01:04.760 --> 0:01:07.080 it's been over a hundred years, what's the big deal? 0:01:07.200 --> 0:01:10.480 Get over it? But I don't think people realize that 0:01:10.520 --> 0:01:22.520 it's a lived experience for all of us. I'm Chris 0:01:22.520 --> 0:01:26.400 Garcia and this is Finding Raffie, a ten part series 0:01:26.440 --> 0:01:29.280 from My Heart Radio and Fatherly in partnership with The 0:01:29.319 --> 0:01:35.000 Rococo Punch about the life, philosophy, and the work of Raffie, 0:01:35.800 --> 0:01:47.240 the man behind the music. Rafie never set out to 0:01:47.280 --> 0:01:50.480 make music for kids. A year before his first children's 0:01:50.480 --> 0:01:53.919 album came out, he released this instrumental honoring his roots. 0:01:54.720 --> 0:02:00.840 It's called Impressions of Armenia. He wrote it before the 0:02:00.840 --> 0:02:03.520 Fall of the Soviet Union after spending three weeks in 0:02:03.640 --> 0:02:06.640 Armenia with his brother and sister, an invitation from the 0:02:06.680 --> 0:02:13.480 government because of their father's renowned photography career. When we went, 0:02:13.680 --> 0:02:16.040 we were the privileged ones getting to see it in 0:02:16.040 --> 0:02:19.440 a very unique way because some of the resorts that 0:02:19.560 --> 0:02:22.440 we went to and state that the people didn't even 0:02:22.440 --> 0:02:26.520 know they existed. It was very much closed society in 0:02:26.560 --> 0:02:31.520 the Soviet Union era. So it was very moving and 0:02:31.880 --> 0:02:35.320 heartbreaking in some ways and promising in other ways. You know, 0:02:35.360 --> 0:02:39.720 it was just a lot to process emotionally. Impressions of 0:02:39.800 --> 0:02:41.600 Armenia is a song that tells the story of a 0:02:41.680 --> 0:02:45.760 homeland raf he's never fully known, of a country and 0:02:45.800 --> 0:02:49.360 a people who survived the fall of empires, a genocide, 0:02:49.520 --> 0:02:54.440 and diaspora. Rafi was born in Egypt and raised in Canada, 0:02:54.600 --> 0:02:58.440 but the history of his Armenian ancestors flows through him. 0:02:58.480 --> 0:03:00.919 He may not include an explicit at lee in his music, 0:03:01.320 --> 0:03:04.760 but like so many Armenian artists, that legacy has shaped 0:03:04.800 --> 0:03:12.080 his life and his work. It was night in Cairo. 0:03:12.440 --> 0:03:15.320 The wedding of seventeen year old King Farouk of Egypt 0:03:15.480 --> 0:03:18.480 was the event of the decade, complete with a procession 0:03:18.520 --> 0:03:22.120 of flowered parade floats, twinkling lights displayed all over the 0:03:22.200 --> 0:03:25.320 royal Palace, and a glamorous Parisian wedding gown for the 0:03:25.400 --> 0:03:29.560 King's sixteen year old bride, Queen Ferida. And among the 0:03:29.600 --> 0:03:34.639 celebrations performers was a young accordionist Arto Cabukian, Raphae's father. 0:03:35.720 --> 0:03:39.000 My father was quite a musician. He played two or 0:03:39.000 --> 0:03:43.720 three instruments, primarily the accordion, which is what I heard 0:03:43.760 --> 0:03:45.960 him playing while we were growing up, and in family 0:03:46.440 --> 0:03:50.240 gatherings and parties, we would always urge him to take 0:03:50.240 --> 0:03:55.360 out his big red accordion. Arto's accordion playing led him 0:03:55.360 --> 0:03:58.680 to Lucy Papasian. The two met at another wedding where 0:03:58.760 --> 0:04:02.400 Arto is performing and where Ardo danced only with Lucy. 0:04:02.760 --> 0:04:08.360 A few months later, they married five years later. Rafi 0:04:08.440 --> 0:04:13.280 Kabukian was born in Cairo, Egypt. Art, music, and literature 0:04:13.320 --> 0:04:16.200 were highly valued by the Kabukians, so they named their 0:04:16.200 --> 0:04:19.880 second son after one of Lucy's favorite Armenian authors, a 0:04:19.920 --> 0:04:23.440 patriotic novelist and poet who used the pen name Raffi. 0:04:26.360 --> 0:04:29.280 Rafi Kabukian grew up in Cairo in the nineteen fifties. 0:04:29.640 --> 0:04:32.320 He was the middle kid between his older brother Ownig 0:04:32.360 --> 0:04:35.760 and his younger sister Annie. Ownig and Raffi shared a 0:04:35.839 --> 0:04:38.640 room with their grandmother in the family's three bedroom apartment. 0:04:39.120 --> 0:04:41.160 It was a place where you could find hidden chocolates 0:04:41.160 --> 0:04:43.880 in the dining room, where the Armenian rugs were perfect 0:04:43.920 --> 0:04:46.680 for playing marbles and were pickled cucumbers are ready for 0:04:46.720 --> 0:04:50.360 snacking in the kitchen. And there was also the music. 0:04:50.680 --> 0:04:53.599 I think we used to hear on our family stereo 0:04:53.680 --> 0:04:57.240 set hi fi. We used to go the music we 0:04:57.240 --> 0:05:00.320 were listening to in the fifties, which were my formative years. 0:05:01.080 --> 0:05:05.120 We're pop music of the time from Europe, from all over, 0:05:05.920 --> 0:05:13.600 and these songs were melodic. Melody to me is something 0:05:13.720 --> 0:05:17.160 that's just indispensable when the custom music making soul. It's 0:05:17.200 --> 0:05:21.520 just interesting to remember that as a form of development 0:05:22.040 --> 0:05:26.680 from my Cairo years and my Armenian family with the 0:05:26.760 --> 0:05:30.440 rugs and the hi fi. But not all of Ralphie's 0:05:30.480 --> 0:05:35.880 childhood memories were heartwarming. I was mocked and humiliated at times, 0:05:35.920 --> 0:05:39.080 and I was hit and I couldn't square that with 0:05:39.520 --> 0:05:42.200 the fact that I knew I was loved, So why 0:05:42.240 --> 0:05:46.000 didn't I feel respected for who I felt I was. 0:05:51.920 --> 0:05:55.599 In his autobiography, Raffie writes that a sharp slap in 0:05:55.640 --> 0:05:58.200 the face or a snide remark from his mother and 0:05:58.279 --> 0:06:01.040 father were at odds with the warmth of their hugs 0:06:01.040 --> 0:06:05.279 and compliments. That when company came around, his parents would 0:06:05.320 --> 0:06:08.200 make him perform a song or a poem for their guests, 0:06:08.240 --> 0:06:11.919 expecting him to do it without complaint and without error. 0:06:12.760 --> 0:06:16.680 If Raffie did well, he was praised. If not, his 0:06:16.720 --> 0:06:19.720 embarrassment and shame were swept aside with a comment about 0:06:19.880 --> 0:06:25.760 doing better next time. That sense of shame and disrespect 0:06:26.400 --> 0:06:30.200 Raffi would carry that for years. He would eventually process 0:06:30.240 --> 0:06:33.320 it and form a philosophy around how kids should be treated, 0:06:33.760 --> 0:06:43.760 one that centered around respect. Raffie's parents loomed large in 0:06:43.800 --> 0:06:48.440 his life, especially his father Ardo. He ran a photography studio, 0:06:49.000 --> 0:06:54.120 Studio cavuc originally founded by Arto's father, Ohannas Cavukian. Arto 0:06:54.200 --> 0:06:57.680 was skilled at shooting, retouching, and framing photographs, but he 0:06:57.800 --> 0:07:01.760 was a master portrait artist. He'd work every day, coming 0:07:01.800 --> 0:07:04.839 home only for a meal and a nap. On Sundays, 0:07:04.839 --> 0:07:07.599 he took his family to church and the Pyramids and 0:07:07.720 --> 0:07:11.280 always ended the day back at the studio. He also 0:07:11.360 --> 0:07:14.680 had an impressive client list of dignitaries like the former 0:07:14.760 --> 0:07:17.160 King of Egypt and the head of the Armenian Church. 0:07:18.480 --> 0:07:21.280 Ardo and his family were like an Armenian gold standard, 0:07:21.680 --> 0:07:25.040 an example of what dedication, hard work, and resilience could 0:07:25.120 --> 0:07:29.360 create even after a horrific genocide. There were stories of 0:07:29.480 --> 0:07:35.880 survival of my families survival from the massacres of the 0:07:35.880 --> 0:07:39.840 Ottoman Empire, both sides of the family, and my mother 0:07:39.880 --> 0:07:46.440 and my father in infancy. Their families survived. The Armenian genocide, 0:07:46.640 --> 0:07:50.960 planned and perpetrated by Ottoman Turkish authorities, took place between 0:07:51.000 --> 0:07:54.680 the spring of nineteen fifteen and the fall of nineteen sixteen, 0:07:55.120 --> 0:07:59.200 and the death toll varies widely. Figures range from six 0:07:59.280 --> 0:08:02.600 hundred thousand to as many as one point two million 0:08:02.680 --> 0:08:06.760 ethnic Armenian Christians, and that doesn't include the hundreds and 0:08:06.800 --> 0:08:10.720 thousands of Assyrians and Greeks who were also targeted. By 0:08:10.720 --> 0:08:13.600 the end of World War One, it's estimated that more 0:08:13.640 --> 0:08:17.320 than nine of Armenians and the Ottoman Empire had died. 0:08:23.040 --> 0:08:26.400 Raphie heard his family's harrowing stories all throughout his childhood 0:08:27.080 --> 0:08:31.560 Lucy's father escaped death seven times. He was a building foreman, 0:08:31.800 --> 0:08:34.720 and the Turkish officials always ended up sparing him so 0:08:34.800 --> 0:08:39.600 they could use his valuable skills. Arto's father, Ohanis, was 0:08:39.640 --> 0:08:42.560 an artist. The night before he, his wife, and his 0:08:42.640 --> 0:08:46.520 month old son Ardo faced execution, he stayed up drawing 0:08:46.520 --> 0:08:50.880 a charcoal portrait of the general commanding officer. When the 0:08:50.960 --> 0:08:54.560 officers saw the sketch, he was so impressed he assigned 0:08:54.559 --> 0:08:59.400 Ohannis to Aleppo to teach drawing. His entire family was saved, 0:08:59.520 --> 0:09:02.600 along with nearly thirty people after Ihan has claimed them 0:09:02.640 --> 0:09:08.720 all as family members, all saved because of his drawing. 0:09:12.720 --> 0:09:16.680 Isn't an amazing story, right, stories of how arts saved 0:09:16.679 --> 0:09:23.040 the day. Do you think your family's trauma leaving Armenia 0:09:23.160 --> 0:09:26.640 has impacted you? That's too hard a question to answer. 0:09:27.480 --> 0:09:32.160 Of course, it's impacted me. We are products of our experience. 0:09:33.280 --> 0:09:37.319 So I've written about this in my autobiography. I've talked 0:09:37.360 --> 0:09:40.480 about it. I mean, you know, the stories that you 0:09:40.559 --> 0:09:43.800 grow up with, they are the content that you have 0:09:43.880 --> 0:09:48.240 to make sense of and then you decide their role 0:09:48.520 --> 0:09:52.440 in your emotional landscape. Are those stories going to drive you? 0:09:53.000 --> 0:09:56.600 Or are they going to enrich your sense of who 0:09:56.679 --> 0:09:59.360 you feel you are and what it feels possible for you. 0:10:03.679 --> 0:10:06.240 This is not where I expected to end up when 0:10:06.240 --> 0:10:11.199 I started listening to Raffie's music, Genocide and trauma. Could 0:10:11.240 --> 0:10:14.040 anything be further away from the image we have of 0:10:14.120 --> 0:10:17.120 the guy who sings about baby whales and banana phones. 0:10:18.240 --> 0:10:21.960 I began to realize the profound empathy I registered in 0:10:22.040 --> 0:10:26.640 his music came from a really deep place. Perhaps without 0:10:26.679 --> 0:10:46.080 these stories, Raffie wouldn't be Raffie. There's the generation who 0:10:46.120 --> 0:10:49.280 lived the trauma, and then there are the generations who 0:10:49.280 --> 0:10:52.680 are descendants of those who are traumatized. They didn't live 0:10:52.760 --> 0:10:57.400 the trauma, but they carry this trauma. This is Dr 0:10:57.480 --> 0:11:00.720 Shushan got up at theon She's the deputy director of 0:11:00.800 --> 0:11:05.200 the University of Southern California's Institute of Armenian Studies. I 0:11:05.240 --> 0:11:08.240 think it's it's not difficult to imagine the kind of 0:11:08.960 --> 0:11:17.000 trauma surviving, the trauma of rebuilding, um of being in 0:11:17.040 --> 0:11:21.280 an environment where you're not sure you're welcome, of your 0:11:21.320 --> 0:11:26.120 family being torn apart of maybe missing important family members, 0:11:26.960 --> 0:11:33.079 language issues, cultural issues, this kind of constant upheaval each 0:11:33.120 --> 0:11:36.120 family dealt with the trauma of the genocide in its 0:11:36.120 --> 0:11:40.240 own way. Raphie's family faced it head on, sharing their 0:11:40.280 --> 0:11:44.599 story from generation to generation, while others did the opposite. 0:11:45.120 --> 0:11:48.640 There were groups who completely shut down and their method 0:11:48.640 --> 0:11:51.800 of dealing with this was to just eradicate the memory 0:11:52.080 --> 0:11:56.040 and kind of disassociate. There were those who stayed in 0:11:56.080 --> 0:11:58.480 a stage of anger, and there were those who talked 0:11:58.520 --> 0:12:04.720 about it NonStop. There are two kinds of survivors. The 0:12:04.760 --> 0:12:10.080 survivors who write memoirs, who have the luminous stories that 0:12:10.160 --> 0:12:13.760 they want to share, and then there are survivors like 0:12:14.600 --> 0:12:20.560 my grandparents, who shared almost nothing. This is Chris boj Alien. 0:12:20.800 --> 0:12:23.160 He's an Armenian American author who has written more than 0:12:23.200 --> 0:12:28.000 twenty bucks, including Midwives, The Flight Attendant, and The Sandcastle Girls, 0:12:28.200 --> 0:12:32.240 which is centered around the Armenian genocide. Chris remembers hearing 0:12:32.240 --> 0:12:34.600 a story about his aunt and uncle who are starting 0:12:34.600 --> 0:12:36.760 a chain of yogurt stands in New York City in 0:12:36.800 --> 0:12:43.040 the nineteen seventies. They were explaining the business plan to 0:12:43.120 --> 0:12:48.400 my Armenian grandmother, and my Armenian grandmother says, oh, of course, 0:12:48.440 --> 0:12:52.880 and you'll be serving tongue, which is in Armenian or 0:12:53.000 --> 0:12:58.720 Middle Eastern yogurt drink, and my aunt says yes, and 0:12:58.760 --> 0:13:02.720 then my grandmother is to her, oh, well, that's one 0:13:02.760 --> 0:13:05.040 of the reasons why my parents first took me out 0:13:05.040 --> 0:13:09.880 of the school. They used the tom to poison the children, 0:13:10.920 --> 0:13:15.520 and my aunt says, ma, what are you talking about. 0:13:15.960 --> 0:13:19.000 And of course my grandmother had never shared with her 0:13:19.080 --> 0:13:23.559 daughter the story of when in an Ottoman school at 0:13:23.600 --> 0:13:26.840 the start of the Armenian genocide, some of the children 0:13:26.840 --> 0:13:33.920 were poisoned with tom. So little by little the stories 0:13:33.960 --> 0:13:38.400 would emerge, but it was a trickle because the trauma 0:13:38.559 --> 0:13:42.439 was so deeply ingrained inside them that they kept it 0:13:42.520 --> 0:13:49.720 to themselves. And then, of course there's the denial. Shushan says. 0:13:49.800 --> 0:13:52.280 Part of what keeps the trauma alive is the lack 0:13:52.320 --> 0:13:55.560 of recognition from the Turkish government. It has offered its 0:13:55.559 --> 0:13:59.280 condolences for the atrocities while actively denying any plan to 0:13:59.360 --> 0:14:04.880 systematic we wipe out Armenian Christians despite extensive documentation. This 0:14:05.000 --> 0:14:11.920 denial has kept the wound open and festering and kind 0:14:11.920 --> 0:14:17.720 of made the genocide this root paradigm in the Armenian narrative, 0:14:18.240 --> 0:14:24.200 the victimization. The trauma is constantly relived because there is 0:14:24.240 --> 0:14:28.600 no healing because there is no opportunity for moving on. 0:14:29.360 --> 0:14:31.520 Right because last year was the first time an American 0:14:31.560 --> 0:14:36.360 president actually called it a genocide. Absolutely, because of the denial, 0:14:36.520 --> 0:14:41.400 genocide recognition has become the priority on all Armenian platforms. 0:14:41.920 --> 0:14:44.840 It's as if we can't move on to anything else. 0:14:45.160 --> 0:14:47.040 And it's something I tell my students, right, there were 0:14:47.120 --> 0:14:50.320 Armenians before the genocide. There are Armenians after the genocide. 0:14:50.400 --> 0:14:53.480 Armenian history doesn't start and end with the genocide. The 0:14:53.600 --> 0:14:57.400 Armenian experience is not only about the genocide, but it 0:14:57.520 --> 0:15:02.320 seems like this, I mean again, Historian Rasmi Pandosian would say, 0:15:02.320 --> 0:15:05.960 it's the equalizer of all Armenians. You know that the 0:15:06.160 --> 0:15:11.040 people spread across the globe, among different countries, different cultures, 0:15:11.080 --> 0:15:14.880 different experiences, and yet the genocide and the quest for 0:15:14.920 --> 0:15:24.040 its recognition unites all Armenians. The stories, the silence, the denial. 0:15:24.880 --> 0:15:28.800 Shushan says that instead of destroying the Armenian people, this 0:15:28.960 --> 0:15:33.440 shared trauma has resulted in a culture of compassion, resilience, 0:15:33.880 --> 0:15:41.400 and artistic expression. In a sense, Raphi comes from a 0:15:41.440 --> 0:15:45.560 long line of artists, writers and troubadours, all processing the 0:15:45.600 --> 0:15:52.360 wounds of their ancestors. When you look at what Rabbi 0:15:52.440 --> 0:15:56.200 has done with his life, what so many Armenians have 0:15:56.320 --> 0:16:00.520 done with their lives in the diaspora, We've made art. 0:16:01.560 --> 0:16:04.720 I mean, Rapha's music is like the happiest music on 0:16:05.320 --> 0:16:09.360 the planet. I mean, you know Banana Phone and you 0:16:09.400 --> 0:16:12.800 know Baby Blue Good. All of the joy that he 0:16:12.920 --> 0:16:17.120 has brought to so many children and their parents. If 0:16:17.120 --> 0:16:21.960 you were to meet Raffie, you wouldn't say, oh, my god, 0:16:22.600 --> 0:16:29.160 grandson of survivors of a cataclysmic genocide who is scarred 0:16:29.240 --> 0:16:33.840 for life. You'd say, this is one of the nicest, funniest, sweetest, 0:16:33.880 --> 0:16:37.360 most talented people on the planet. Our Medians are just 0:16:37.680 --> 0:16:45.360 utterly joyful, despite the trauma, despite the fact that forever 0:16:45.560 --> 0:16:54.200 it feels like we have been the forgotten people. So yes, 0:16:54.280 --> 0:16:58.160 it's important, as the Armenian painter Sarry Un said, to 0:16:58.320 --> 0:17:02.400 no one's own homeland. But I like to take that further. 0:17:02.520 --> 0:17:05.320 I said, it's important to know your heritage, of course, 0:17:06.320 --> 0:17:10.720 but you can also transcend your heritage because you have 0:17:10.720 --> 0:17:13.520 a duty to your soul as to what your life 0:17:13.560 --> 0:17:18.800 is about. You know, to me, your people, they should 0:17:18.880 --> 0:17:22.440 encourage your own growth, not to limit it in any way, 0:17:22.760 --> 0:17:27.320 you know, So I can understand the impulse of Armenians 0:17:27.359 --> 0:17:29.399 to claim me as one of their own, and of 0:17:29.440 --> 0:17:34.720 course I am, but not in a way that you know, 0:17:34.880 --> 0:17:37.840 constrains me, but hopefully in a way that celebrates my 0:17:37.920 --> 0:17:41.879 own growth. I relate to that so much because there's um, 0:17:41.920 --> 0:17:44.720 there's their culture, and it is partially responsible who you are, 0:17:44.800 --> 0:17:48.080 but your your individual soul and your individual person that 0:17:48.240 --> 0:17:51.240 has no cultural restraints. So in your heart and in 0:17:51.320 --> 0:17:53.800 your mind and in your spirit, your your own person. 0:17:54.560 --> 0:17:58.480 And so that really resonates with me, like like both 0:17:58.520 --> 0:18:02.840 of our families forcibly fled their country. And sometimes I 0:18:02.880 --> 0:18:06.159 feel too American to be Cuban, into Cuban to be American. 0:18:06.880 --> 0:18:11.240 And sometimes you're laughing because I take it you understand. 0:18:12.600 --> 0:18:15.359 I do understand. I do. Did you ever have moments 0:18:15.400 --> 0:18:19.040 like that when you felt stuck between two worlds? For me, 0:18:19.160 --> 0:18:23.960 it was all about identity. It was a quest for identity. 0:18:24.000 --> 0:18:35.200 Who am I? RAPHI makes a really good point. Our 0:18:35.280 --> 0:18:40.000 family stories ground us. They honor the past, but if 0:18:40.000 --> 0:18:43.320 it's the only story we tell about ourselves, they can 0:18:43.359 --> 0:18:47.880 be stifling. My family story is my story, but it's 0:18:47.880 --> 0:18:51.680 not my whole story. How do I tell our story 0:18:51.720 --> 0:18:55.600 to Sunny without putting her in a box. I want 0:18:55.640 --> 0:18:58.399 her to know her history, but I also want her 0:18:58.440 --> 0:19:01.720 to break free from any cultural constraints and add her 0:19:01.760 --> 0:19:05.720 authentic self to our family story. Maybe the best way 0:19:05.720 --> 0:19:08.240 to honor the past is to allow the story to 0:19:08.320 --> 0:19:16.280 evolve with each generation. As Ralphie grew up, the political 0:19:16.359 --> 0:19:19.919 climate in Egypt was turning more volatile. Raphi writes that 0:19:19.960 --> 0:19:23.000 his father considered moving the family to Australia or Brazil. 0:19:23.880 --> 0:19:26.560 Van Ardo went on a trip to North America. He 0:19:26.600 --> 0:19:29.359 thought New York City was too big, Montreal had too 0:19:29.440 --> 0:19:34.320 much snow, but Toronto was just right. My parents had 0:19:34.359 --> 0:19:36.280 to leave Egypt to find a place where their kids 0:19:36.280 --> 0:19:40.679 could grow and freedom, and that's what they did. I 0:19:40.760 --> 0:19:44.439 was certainly appreciative, so thankful that my father had the 0:19:44.680 --> 0:19:47.199 foresight to see the family needed to move. It was 0:19:47.280 --> 0:19:51.360 not easy for us to leave our comfortable lives in Egypt, 0:19:51.480 --> 0:19:54.080 but it was what needed to happen. So you grow 0:19:54.200 --> 0:19:59.040 from that. You you appreciate, you know what's happened, and 0:19:59.119 --> 0:20:02.359 you you're you're thrown in with the challenges and the 0:20:02.400 --> 0:20:05.720 difficulties and the benefits of growing in a new land, 0:20:06.359 --> 0:20:12.720 and you just do it so in nt with just 0:20:12.840 --> 0:20:16.639 eight pieces of luggage and his grandmother's prayers, Raffi and 0:20:16.640 --> 0:20:20.560 his family flew over Europe and crossed the Atlantic for Canada, 0:20:21.680 --> 0:20:25.600 a world away where the Cabukians would once again start over. 0:20:41.400 --> 0:20:44.120 Raphi's life is a ten year old Armenian Egyptian boy 0:20:44.240 --> 0:20:46.680 in Canada couldn't have been more different than the one 0:20:46.760 --> 0:20:50.359 he had in Cairo. I was born into a new culture, 0:20:50.400 --> 0:20:53.800 if you will. In when we came to Toronto, everything 0:20:53.840 --> 0:20:57.600 made an impression, from how cold it was and how 0:20:57.680 --> 0:21:01.040 I see it could get to the fact that Mrs 0:21:01.080 --> 0:21:03.639 McKinnon in fourth grade one time gave me her lunch 0:21:03.680 --> 0:21:07.239 because I had forgotten my lunch. That really moved me 0:21:07.359 --> 0:21:12.119 so much. And the fact that, you know, teachers in Toronto, 0:21:13.160 --> 0:21:15.720 at the school that my brother and I and we're 0:21:15.760 --> 0:21:19.119 going to and later my sister, they didn't hit you whoa. 0:21:19.520 --> 0:21:24.600 That was interesting. And of course you know, hockey, ice skating, 0:21:24.800 --> 0:21:27.960 new skills, new challenges. What will the kids think of me? 0:21:28.040 --> 0:21:30.920 Oh my god, you know, and a lot of kids 0:21:31.000 --> 0:21:33.720 were mean, you know, made fun of my name and 0:21:34.720 --> 0:21:39.200 played tricks on me, So I had to navigate how 0:21:39.359 --> 0:21:42.960 life was, which is really no different than what kids 0:21:43.080 --> 0:21:47.200 have to do today, you know. But as you know, 0:21:48.040 --> 0:21:51.800 challenges and hardships our test of character, and you learned 0:21:51.840 --> 0:21:56.560 to overcome and you become stronger within, and that's just 0:21:56.960 --> 0:22:00.159 how you get on with life. Raphie loved singing in 0:22:00.160 --> 0:22:03.119 the Armenian choir, but he felt out of place at 0:22:03.160 --> 0:22:06.800 the socials held at the Armenian Church. His parents also 0:22:06.840 --> 0:22:09.480 didn't allow him to do what other Canadian kids were doing, 0:22:09.920 --> 0:22:12.800 like joining after school sports or even riding a bike. 0:22:13.119 --> 0:22:15.400 Since Arto and Lucy didn't let him have his own, 0:22:16.640 --> 0:22:18.560 he spent a lot of time in his dad's new 0:22:18.600 --> 0:22:23.320 portrait studio in Toronto. As Arto meticulously retouched photos, they 0:22:23.359 --> 0:22:28.359 listened to music Andy Williams, Peggy Lee, Frank Sinatra. These 0:22:28.359 --> 0:22:34.480 were moments in Raphae's new world intersected with his old one. 0:22:35.520 --> 0:22:40.919 I was listening to the songs of Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, 0:22:41.440 --> 0:22:46.200 joined by as Joni Mitchell, Gordon Lightfoot, the whole folk 0:22:46.560 --> 0:22:51.359 music singer songwriter you know seen and then Motown you know, 0:22:51.480 --> 0:22:55.280 and all kinds of other music, diverse music on pop radio. 0:22:55.320 --> 0:22:57.720 And I said, to myself, this is cool. I want 0:22:57.720 --> 0:23:02.160 to get a guitar. So I went to a pawn 0:23:02.240 --> 0:23:04.680 shop and put down my twenty four and about a 0:23:05.240 --> 0:23:08.840 Kent nylon string guitar. That was my first one. I 0:23:08.960 --> 0:23:13.199 learned to play guitar and sing and imagine, you know, 0:23:13.320 --> 0:23:15.480 my thrill and and finding out that you could teach 0:23:15.480 --> 0:23:19.720 yourself to do that. As a teenager, raph You would 0:23:19.720 --> 0:23:23.320 spend his afternoons listening to records, playing guitar and singing 0:23:23.359 --> 0:23:26.879 folk songs with his friends. He also started secretly dating 0:23:26.920 --> 0:23:29.959 his first love, Deborah Pike, since Arto had a strict 0:23:30.040 --> 0:23:32.160 no dating while you're still living in the house rule. 0:23:32.960 --> 0:23:36.080 He was settling into hippie culture, letting his hair grow 0:23:36.080 --> 0:23:40.320 along and embracing the flower power of the sixties. I 0:23:40.359 --> 0:23:43.840 think there was a questioning of authority that was very healthy, 0:23:44.000 --> 0:23:47.000 and people are starting to think for themselves. So, you know, 0:23:47.040 --> 0:23:50.679 there was certainty the beginnings of the you know, the 0:23:50.760 --> 0:23:54.440 uptake of interest in yoga and Eastern philosophies and so 0:23:54.440 --> 0:23:59.159 so think about as an expansive experience for those of 0:23:59.240 --> 0:24:03.800 us want to be hippies. You know, it was, you know, 0:24:03.840 --> 0:24:06.880 we were starting to think for ourselves as Raphae attended 0:24:06.880 --> 0:24:09.960 the University of Toronto. He also started playing gigs around 0:24:10.000 --> 0:24:13.560 the city. He'd watch other performers too, learning from them 0:24:13.560 --> 0:24:16.840 and practicing the new techniques he saw on stage. He 0:24:16.920 --> 0:24:19.440 wanted to see where this music thing would take him, 0:24:19.520 --> 0:24:22.240 so in nineteen sixty nine, he moved out of Lucy 0:24:22.280 --> 0:24:25.760 Innardo's house, dropped out of university after two years, and 0:24:25.840 --> 0:24:28.560 threw himself into his new career. You know, at first, 0:24:28.640 --> 0:24:31.440 I was a folk singer, singer songwriter, That's how I started. 0:24:31.480 --> 0:24:34.639 And I wanted a career kind of like James Taylor. 0:24:34.680 --> 0:24:37.359 You know, I wanted to play medium sized halls, not 0:24:37.480 --> 0:24:41.720 Madison Square gardens. You know, the folks scene in Toronto 0:24:41.840 --> 0:24:45.479 was vibrant and tight knit. Ralphie's friend and fellow folky 0:24:45.600 --> 0:24:49.080 John Lacy, remembers those days. Well, you'd usually go to 0:24:49.119 --> 0:24:51.280 a place and you do a guest set on a 0:24:51.359 --> 0:24:53.880 jam night or hoot Nanny Knight who was called back then, 0:24:54.280 --> 0:24:56.520 and you do your thing and if they like you enough, 0:24:56.560 --> 0:24:59.840 they'd hire you and you come back whenever the date was. 0:25:00.640 --> 0:25:03.480 He and Raffi would often back each other up at gigs. 0:25:03.960 --> 0:25:06.000 He was doing the same stuff. Was we all work 0:25:06.080 --> 0:25:08.080 on and then he wrote a few songs too, but 0:25:08.680 --> 0:25:11.960 predominantly he was he was doing covers. Who would you 0:25:11.960 --> 0:25:17.639 guys cover? John Prine, the Birds, uh Pete Seeger and 0:25:17.720 --> 0:25:21.159 joined byas and don't he met schell O'Neil young that 0:25:21.240 --> 0:25:23.720 type of thing. Just whatever tune in the grabbed you, 0:25:23.720 --> 0:25:33.320 you know. John and Raffie moved into a big house 0:25:33.359 --> 0:25:35.639 with a bunch of other young hippies in an area 0:25:35.680 --> 0:25:39.320 of Toronto called Cabbage Town. John says he taught Raffie 0:25:39.359 --> 0:25:42.399 a guitar technique called flat picking. He even got to 0:25:42.440 --> 0:25:45.800 know Rafy's Armenian heritage through the meals at the Kabukian home, 0:25:46.160 --> 0:25:49.960 where he remembers eating tabuli for the first time. John 0:25:50.080 --> 0:25:53.119 also saw how Ralphie's parents had a different vision for 0:25:53.160 --> 0:25:56.320 their son's life. I think that he felt a certain 0:25:56.359 --> 0:26:01.080 tension because here he was, his folky musician going on 0:26:01.160 --> 0:26:03.560 the world, and all of us who decided to do 0:26:03.680 --> 0:26:06.919 music for a living, that was the thing, was the living. 0:26:07.359 --> 0:26:09.639 There was a certain stress with the parents over that, 0:26:09.920 --> 0:26:12.119 certainly with my parents, so they didn't want me to 0:26:12.160 --> 0:26:14.840 do it. His folks weren't a hundred percent behind on 0:26:15.440 --> 0:26:18.960 doing it. They are typical immigrant parents. They wanted the 0:26:19.000 --> 0:26:21.800 kids to go to university and get a classic degree 0:26:21.880 --> 0:26:25.479 and education and go into a bona fide of business. 0:26:26.560 --> 0:26:28.359 I think his parents might have wanted him to the 0:26:28.400 --> 0:26:32.880 photography think too. As Ralfie was finding his way as 0:26:32.880 --> 0:26:36.800 a folk musician, the pressure and pull from his parents continued. 0:26:37.640 --> 0:26:39.720 They didn't seem to understand that he had his own 0:26:39.760 --> 0:26:43.640 goals and dreams for his life. Ralphie remembers the time 0:26:43.680 --> 0:26:46.200 in his early twenties when he sat for a portrait 0:26:46.520 --> 0:26:50.240 at Arto Studio. My father had taken a beautiful color 0:26:50.400 --> 0:26:53.320 portrait of me head and shoulders, and he had this 0:26:53.720 --> 0:26:57.040 abstract painting. I don't know who who did the painting, 0:26:57.119 --> 0:27:00.800 but he kind of took the two image. Isn't made that, 0:27:01.080 --> 0:27:05.280 you know, a double exposure color print, and so there 0:27:05.320 --> 0:27:09.040 there's my head and shoulders, but you know, abstract colors 0:27:09.080 --> 0:27:11.400 all over the place and forms and so on. Are 0:27:11.480 --> 0:27:15.199 They called it the indecision of youth, And I wouldn't 0:27:15.240 --> 0:27:18.119 say he called it that in a flattering way. So 0:27:18.160 --> 0:27:20.960 I was a little upset about it, but I also 0:27:21.040 --> 0:27:24.159 understood that that's how he saw me at the time. 0:27:24.800 --> 0:27:27.560 But I was exploring. I was excited. I was alive. 0:27:28.240 --> 0:27:32.280 I was, I was awake, you know. So do you 0:27:32.320 --> 0:27:35.600 think this portrait was your dad's reaction to just not 0:27:35.760 --> 0:27:39.119 understanding you? Whoa he was struggling with the man I 0:27:39.200 --> 0:27:43.040 was becoming. Yeah, because it didn't go along the script 0:27:43.080 --> 0:27:47.360 that he would have wanted. I wasn't gonna just say, oh, yeah, 0:27:47.600 --> 0:27:50.040 I'll work in your studio, dad, you know from now. No, No, 0:27:50.200 --> 0:27:52.800 I was on my own path, and that was hard 0:27:52.840 --> 0:27:56.560 for him because he had gone into his father's work 0:27:57.320 --> 0:28:02.200 after his father's death, even as he my father had 0:28:02.920 --> 0:28:05.600 taken his father's work and run with it, as in, 0:28:05.800 --> 0:28:10.320 you know, pioneered in color portraiture, something his father never did. 0:28:11.480 --> 0:28:14.960 So we all have a duty to ourselves to to 0:28:15.119 --> 0:28:19.760 grow our hearts yearnings, to to put those yearnings into 0:28:20.240 --> 0:28:22.680 the expressions of who we are and how we might 0:28:22.760 --> 0:28:27.600 serve in society. Was it hard for you to go 0:28:27.640 --> 0:28:32.399 against your parents expectations like that? Not at all. No. 0:28:32.560 --> 0:28:36.919