Literary Critique of “The Face of My Childhood”

In her book “Beyond the Words” Alicia Ghiragossian reveals a profoundly poignant poem about her identity issue and how powerfully it pierces her existence. Focusing on being an Armenian growing up in Argentina, the result of her parent’s courageous escape from the Armenian genocide in 1915 carried out by Turkey, the poem captures the essence of her feelings of “otherness” within Argentinean society. The poem, even through its literary nature, perfectly and accessibly delves into the conflicting psychology of discrimination. Specifically the main issue of “otherness” is developed and the poet brings into discussion what affects discrimination have on her adult identity- which can be universally felt by all people. The poem titled “I Would Like to Buy” reads:

“I would like to buy

The face of my childhood.

To take it out

Of the photo album

of refugees

And draw it identically

In another land

-that of my ancestors-

Naked

Newly born

From the fires

Because in spite

Of all the lives

I have lived

I am still not myself.

I would like to wander

Through the streets

Of that land

Pregnant with freedom

Where bones

Were burst

With gunpowder

On a bed of flags.

I would like to touch that land

To feel my past

In its fragrance

And reclaim

My essence.”

The poem captures the reader’s attention by its rawness and truth and relates the psychology of feeling discriminated against entirely. Throughout the poem there are references of a split soul- a person who cannot claim her identity. The poet wants to “buy the face” of her childhood and cut it out of the pictures that label her as a “refugee” in Argentina and “draw” it into the land of her birth. The issue of labeling is inherent in discrimination which replaces the dignity of a human being with a false idea and a false, usually damaging, stereotype, type, or image. A human being cannot be pigeonholed. She is no longer a free child in the photograph but instead she is doomed to be a “refugee” and inevitably an “other” in society. The status of “refugee” not only negatively labels the poet, but also speaks directly to the fact that she does not belong in Argentina and that she is ultimately a victim. The term “refugee” is not necessarily negative, yet both the fact that she is a refugee from genocide and the “otherness” that society views her with contribute to the negative association. No doubt this kind of labeling is destructive to a young child and will affect her in adulthood.

Furthermore, it is intriguing how the poet mentions “in spite of all the lives I have lived I am still not myself.” In a philosophical and existential way the poet makes a powerful and sorrowful statement about how deeply the discrimination has affected her. The many lives she speaks of are the phases of life, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, her creative life and how in spite of living and breathing she is still not herself. She was never able to discover herself because her growth was always tainted by false labels. Discrimination is destructive. And sadly, as seen in her psychology, it has the power to make herself a stranger to her own self. This point is made clearer in the next lines when she emphasizes how walking the streets of Armenia, now free yet stained with the blood and the dead after the genocide, is the only place she can reclaim her identity. It is there that she can “touch the land,” “feel her past” and ultimately “reclaim her essence.” In her imaginary and hopeful visit to Armenia the poet pictures a time when she can at last reclaim her identity and be herself. Significant to point out is the poet’s need to belong, the poet’s need to experience a familiar culture, and the poet’s need to feel the history of her people. As a refugee child in Argentina, the poet had to assimilate culturally by learning Spanish, going to Argentinean schools and learning the customs. She did all those things and still had society, mostly children her age at the Argentinean school, treat her differently and not understand her accent or family. She would even try in vain to change her last name, culturally Armenian, due to the fact that she was being taunted as a refugee. To be a child in an alien place while living with a family deeply rooted in her native culture created an identity crisis within her. This crisis, in turn, prompted the need to understand who she is, to belong to her culture. She cannot find herself in a place where she is labeled, discriminated and not at peace. She loses herself. This statement reaches universal levels and every human in every corner of the planet can relate to the need to belong and how discrimination forces into our faces our “otherness”, which is not a negative thing after all. Therefore, discrimination does nothing but hurt, isolate and cause chaos for the soul as so effortlessly expressed in this poem.

By Robert Danielak