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The Los Angeles metropolitan area has a significant Armenian American population. As of 1990 it was the largest population of Armenians in the world that was not in Armenia.〔Bozorgmehr, Der-Martirosian, Sabagh, "Middle Easterners: A New Kind of Immigrant," p. (352 ).〕 Anny P. Bakalian, author of ''Armenian-Americans: From Being to Feeling Armenian'', wrote that "Los Angeles has become a sort of Mecca for traditional Armenianness."〔Bakalian, p. (429 ).〕 Since 1965 and as of 1993, the majority of immigration of ethnic Armenians from the former Soviet Union have gone to the Los Angeles area.〔 ==History== Aram Yeretzian, a social worker and Protestant Christian minister who wrote a 1923 University of Southern California thesis on the Armenians of Los Angeles, stated that the first Armenian in Los Angeles arrived in around 1900. According to Yeretzian, the first Armenian was a student who left the East Coast due to health concerns. Yeretzian stated that the second Armenian was a vendor of Oriental rugs. The Armenian community expanded because the first Armenians had invited friends and relatives to move to Los Angeles by writing letters to them.〔Bakalian, p. (15 ).〕 A pre-1920s wave of Armenian immigration occurred from western Armenia, due to the Armenian Genocide during the violent disruption and break-up of the Ottoman Empire.〔Der-Martirosian, Sabagh, and Bozorgmehr, p. (247 ).〕 Most of the early Armenian settlers to Los Angeles were known as Turkish Armenians, from territory now included in Turkey.〔Der-Martirosian, Sabagh, and Bozorgmehr, "Subethnicity: Armenians in Los Angeles," p. (250 ).〕 Circa 1923 there were an estimated 2,500 to 3,000 Armenians in the city.〔 Some Armenian families had settled in the Los Angeles area starting in the late 19th century. In 1889 brothers John and Moses Pashgian opened their oriental rug business in Pasadena. By the mid-1920s more Armenians were settling in the Pasadena area. In 1924 the Varoujan Club was founded by 20 young Armenians to organize Armenian cultural and social events. During this period, the Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU) and the Compatriotic Reconstruction Union of Hadjin were founded. By 1933 there were 120 Armenian families in Pasadena. Nearly all of these immigrants were from the Ottoman Empire; very few were from the Russian Empire. The Pasadena Armenians settled in the area of Allen Avenue and Washington Boulevard, near the Church of the Nazarene, which was used by the Protestant Armenians.〔()〕 Another wave of immigration to Los Angeles occurred in the 1940s. Most Armenians then settled in Little Armenia in Hollywood.〔Texeira, Erin P. "Ethnic Friction Disturbs Peace of Glendale." ''Los Angeles Times''. June 25, 2000. p. (1 ). Retrieved on March 24, 2014. "Armenians fleeing violence and oppression at home began arriving in Los Angeles around the 1940s. Most settled in Hollywood--once called "Little Armenia"--and aspired to homes in Glendale, among other cities."〕 Due to the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which eased restrictions against newer immigrant groups, another wave of Armenian immigration to Los Angeles began. The Lebanese Civil War beginning in 1975 resulted in Lebanese Armenians immigrating here.〔 Political conflicts also were catalysts for Iranian Armenians and Egyptian Armenians to settle in Los Angeles. Armenians from Fresno and the East Coast have also moved to Los Angeles because of the large community there of Armenians.〔 Approximately 9,500 Armenians came to the United States in 1979 and 1980, and most settled in Hollywood. In August 1987, as part of ''glasnost'', the Soviet Union began approving for exit visas for Armenians wishing to emigrate to the United States to reunite with relatives. As a result, from October 1987 through March 1988, 2,000 Armenians arrived in Los Angeles County. That March, county officials were expecting an additional 8,000 Armenians to arrive. The county officials stated that the expected immigration of 10,000 Armenians from the Soviet Union was the single largest arrival of an ethnic group after the late 1970s Vietnamese immigration.〔Arax, Mark and Esther Schrader. "County Braces for Sudden Influx of Soviet Armenians." ''Los Angeles Times''. March 8, 1988. (online page 1 ). Print: Vol.107, p.1. Available from Cengage Learning, Inc. Retrieved on July 2, 2014.〕 Some Los Angeles-area Armenian leaders believed that increased settlement in the United States would dilute the Armenian presence in the Soviet Union and area around Armenia, and therefore felt ambivalence.〔 In 1988 up to 3,000 Iranian Armenians were scheduled to arrive in the Los Angeles area.〔 From 1987 to 1989, 90% of Armenians leaving the Soviet Union settled in Los Angeles.〔Schrader, Esther. "(Undertow: LA copes with the flood of Soviet emigres. )" ''The New Republic''. December 4, 1989. Vol.201(23), p.11(2). ISSN: 0028-6583. "()for many years home to the largest community of Armenians outside Yerevan.()Nine out of ten Armenians leaving the Soviet Union in the past two years have come here, joining relatives and friends."〕 By the 1990s political conflict in the former Soviet Union caused more Armenians in that area to move to Los Angeles.〔 In 2010 Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers signed a two-year endorsement with Turkish Airlines. Because the company is owned by the Turkish government, which the Armenians hold responsible for the unacknowledged 1915 genocide, Armenians in the Los Angeles area and US protested, asking him to give up the contract.〔"(Kobe Bryant’s deal with Turkish Airlines outrages Armenian Americans )." ''Los Angeles Times''. December 15, 2010. Retrieved on July 2, 2014.〕 By 2014 the Los Angeles area had received additional Armenian refugees from Egypt and Syria.〔Gonzalez, David. "(Following the Global Armenian Diaspora )." ''The New York Times''. April 24, 2014. Retrieved on July 2, 2014.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「History of the Armenian Americans in Los Angeles」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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