In this paper, it is crucial to go through the Armenian experience in Istanbul as this city considered the Turkish Armenians main agglomeration place. One of the most helpful paper discussing the Armenians in Istanbul is Melissa Bilal’s paper titled by “Longing for Home at Home”. Merissa assembles with great homogeny the struggle of being at homeland and feeling displaced at the same time. Bilal justifies the feeling of being home that Armenians have. She emphasizes that the people deported from Anatolia and came to Istanbul feel at home simply because they see Istanbul as part of Anatolia (Bilal). Although Istanbul is not a homeland for part of them, they see it as motherland simply because Anatolia belongs to the country that Istanbul belongs to. …show more content…
Even though the displacement feeling didn’t disassociate them, Armenians have always expressed with “we have always been here” to emphasize their native roots on their homeland. In addition, Armenians in Istanbul have gone through unfair treatment, discrimination, lawful restriction; however, they never gave up their identity and never forget the homeland (either represented by Istanbul or Anatolia). They felt obligated to protect cultural heritage in the homeland (Bilal). Looking back to Michela Mann theory of Ethnos and Demos, the democracy that Turkey had created ethnic groups where the major ethnicity is the Turks, and other minor ethnicities include the Armenians. The major ethnic group “the demos” had oppressed and discriminated the minor groups “ethnos” who saw in ethnicity a way to survive (Mann, 3). Hence, Armenians in turkey have always considered outsiders by Turks, but they knew the importance of the cultural, linguistic and historical heritage. To illustrate this point, Bilal quotes a street