I was seven years old, still in my school uniform, spewing out my thoughts to my mom. My vocabulary was limited, but my emotions certainly were not. Somewhere in the middle of my passionate rambling, my mom pulled out her phone and began to record me. The moment I noticed the camera, I held my head a little higher, proud that my concerns were being documented. To me, that camera meant that what I was saying mattered — that my frustration was being heard and that, somehow, my voice could reach beyond that singular moment.
It was the day before Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day. At school, the students were all excited that we would not have to return to class the next morning. Among the Armenian students, there was an unspoken understanding of why. We all had at least a basic understanding of what April 24th meant: the symbolic beginning of the mass killing and displacement of millions of our people by Ottoman Turkey.
For many of the non-Armenian students, though, the Armenian Genocide may have been something they had never heard of, or only heard about in passing. As I remember it, no one had explicitly explained why our schools were closing, or taught us about the history we were taking the day to commemorate — which is precisely what sparked my adamant outburst.
Despite growing up with an understanding of the Armenian Genocide through my family and community, I still wanted to deepen that knowledge in a classroom setting alongside classmates who would also be learning about such a crucial part of history. I searched for a solution with all the policy expertise one could expect from a seven-year-old. I spoke endlessly about schools, about recognition, and about how everyone should have the means to learn about the Armenian Genocide. I knew exactly what I wanted, but I didn’t have the words to explain what needed to be done and how we could get there. So, instead, I repeated the one thing I was certain of: we needed this education.
That desire — a classroom, a curriculum, a country making this history accessible — didn’t disappear when the camera stopped recording. More than a decade later, it took shape as the Armenian Genocide Education Act.
Reintroduced in Congress in 2025, the Armenian Genocide Education Act builds upon earlier federal recognition of the Genocide, including congressional recognition in 2019 and presidential recognition in 2021. It is the third time this bill has been reintroduced — a testament to the Armenian community’s persistence in making this history accessible to all of America.
The Armenian National Committee of America’s (ANCA’s) policy brief sums it up clearly: the bill seeks to secure ten million dollars over five years for the Library of Congress to help educate Americans about the Armenian Genocide, while promoting greater public understanding of its history, lessons, consequences, and ongoing costs.
The legislation addresses a shortage of Armenian Genocide material in school textbooks and lesson plans. As the ANCA rightly emphasizes, expanding education is necessary to push back against the Turkish government’s ongoing denial of the Armenian Genocide and its efforts to weaken U.S. recognition of it. The most powerful way to counter more than a century of denial is not always force — it is a curriculum that teaches the truth.
The bill also recognizes that this history extends beyond Armenians alone. It specifically addresses the mass murder, national dispossession, cultural erasure, and exile of Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Syriacs, Arameans, Maronites, and other Christian communities under the Ottoman Empire between 1915 and 1923. In doing so, the bill helps ensure that the suffering of all these communities is remembered.
History cannot be fully understood when key parts of its timeline are left out. Doing so would be like reading a book while skipping entire sections and still expecting to understand the full story. Leaving the Armenian Genocide out of that story means overlooking a history that Armenian-Americans continue to carry with them more than a century later. Lacking the resources to teach about the Armenian Genocide removes an important part of the twentieth century’s history of genocide and human rights. The result is a public uninformed about the events that shaped entire communities with which they now share a country.
Because education is a powerful tool that can shape the minds of America’s youth, the passage of this bill is incredibly important. Teaching the history and consequences of genocide helps future generations recognize the dangers of denial and dehumanization, and ensures that they have the knowledge necessary to reject hatred and prevent history from repeating itself. ANCA’s comparison to the Never Again Education Act, a federal law that supports Holocaust education and awareness, demonstrates that nationwide support for genocide education is entirely possible, and can serve to confront denial and misinformation — countering distortion of history.
On that April afternoon, the only audience to my speech was my mom and the camera in her hand. And yet, I remember believing wholeheartedly that my concerns belonged to something greater than myself. I realize now that my belief was right. The ideas I articulated to the very best of my ability have taken on a tangible form in the Armenian Genocide Education Act.
Its passage would honor the lives and experiences of the millions affected, while helping build a better informed public — one better equipped to understand the past, challenge denial, and carry those valuable lessons into the future.
Turns out, the seven-year-old confidently blabbering with zero policy expertise actually had it right all along. A passion to learn and be heard, it seems, has no age requirement.