Margaret C. Tellalian-Kyrkostas This is Me

 Web References

1. 1. Armenian General Benevolent Union - Publications

   store.agbu.org/publications/ar - [Cached]

   Published on: 4/1/2002   Last Visited: 11/22/2007

   Margaret Tellalian-Kyrkostas is a Queens native. Born in Long Island City, she was raised in the Astoria section of the borough. "I think my parents chose Astoria because they wanted the country. My mother was a very forward thinking person and she saw advantages of living in an outer borough," she says.
   
   The neighborhood at the time was a cross-section of Italians, Greeks, Jews, Slavs and Armenians. Tellalian-Kyrkostas lived a slice of Americana, "My father would always come home with either a Hershey bar or Goobers candies. I'd see him coming down the block and I would run to him. I think people in Queens had an attitude that they were better than the people in the city because we lived in the country and we felt more American. In those days, when someone lived in Manhattan we assumed they were poor. When I traveled I would never say I was from New York City, I would say I'm from Queens."
   
   But Tellalian-Kyrkostas still enjoyed the riches of the city and her father made sure that they would go to the Museum of Natural History at least once a month. This interest led her to rekindle her academic aspirations at age 41 and go on to complete a graduate degree in anthropology. She has since founded the Anthropology Museum of the People of New York at Queens College with the help of the late Margaret Mead, an internationally renowned anthropologist.
   
   Her proudest academic achievement was the creation of the Armenia: Memories From My Home exhibit at the Ellis Island Museum which for a time was embroiled in controversy because the display mentioned the Genocide and used what the Parks Department described as "gory" pictures. The project was curiously initiated by Tellalian-Kyrkostas' non-Armenian class at Queens College, where she teaches. Their interest was peaked at exploring the events of the little-known Genocide.
   
   "The censorship of the exhibit backfired on the Parks Department because we received a lot of publicity and even CBS, CNN and Radio Free Europe interviewed me while the Armenian American community was outraged and mobilized," she says.
   
   The display educated thousands of visitors during the six months it was displayed. Tellalian-Kyrkostas says she has learned from her heritage and tries to explain what it means for her, "Because I was a New York Armenian I felt different, so I decided I was going to stay different."
   
   With each successive wave of immigration to New York, each Armenian community whether from Russia, Romania or Iran have formed their own pocket settlements.

2. 2. The Armenian Weekly Newspaper

   www.hairenik.com/armenianweekl - [Cached]

   Published on: 1/28/2006   Last Visited: 2/2/2006

   The program interviewed the museum's director/curator and co-founder Margaret C. Tellalian-Kyrkostas and toured the many parts of the facility. Tellalian-Kyrkostas explained the history of the museum, and then gave a tour of its various sections. One of the first panels titled "Human Face of Anthropology," presents the four sub-disciplines of anthropology: archeology, linguistic, social/cultural, and biological.
   
   During the tour for the program, Tellalian-Kyrkostas pointed out the museum's Armenian portion, which includes topics such famous Armenian-Americans, the Armenian language, and a display titled "Armenia: Memories from My Home." Portions of the Armenian section have been displayed at event such as the April 24, 2005 event in Times Square, commemorating the 90th anniversary of the Genocide.
   
   "I hope that by seeing this interview, people will become interested in the museum and come to visit and contribute to its growth," said Tellalian-Kyrkostas.

3. 3. ANN/Groong -- NY: Armenian History on Display

   groong.usc.edu/news/msg79380.h - [Cached]

   Published on: 12/31/2003   Last Visited: 1/2/2004

   The late Garabad Tellanian held onto official family documents and mementos, and his daughter, Margaret Tellalian-Kyrkostas, 74, an anthropologist living in Little Neck, understood their historical significance and stored them carefully in the metal container.
   
   Within is an array of faded passports and citizenship forms creating a paper trail to her father's odyssey in 1916.
   ...
   Tellalian-Kyrkostas, executive director and curator of the museum, said she has been working for years to create such a permanent exhibition devoted to the experiences of the 100,000 Armenian-Americans in metropolitan New York.
   
   The notion arose when Tellalian-Kyrkostas met anthropologist Margaret Mead in 1977 at an academic gathering in Washington, D.C.