Born Here, Rooted There

Not all Armenians are born in Armenia. Some of us are born in Los Angeles, or Beirut. In Moscow, or Tehran. In Paris, Glendale, or Toronto. And yet, we are no less Armenian.

We grow up speaking different languages. We move through different cultures. We carry different accents, different customs, different views. But somewhere in all of us, the same flame burns. The one our ancestors lit generations ago—through war, through exile, through survival.

To be born here and rooted there is a kind of double life. You belong to a place you’ve never lived in. You long for a home you’ve never seen. And yet you feel it in your bones. The music, the food, the grief, the pride. It’s all there, humming underneath the surface.

We carry Armenia in pieces: In our grandmother’s recipes. In the way our parents say our names. In tattoos of eternity wheels and names that begin with “A” and end in “ian.”

We carry it in our sorrow and our celebration. In our protests and our poems. In our resilience and our resistance.

APC was born from that in-between space, from the heart of the diaspora. Our designs are for the ones who know what it means to be both and neither. To live in the present and remember the past. To love a land you may never walk again, but will always call home.

You were born here. But you are rooted there. And both are sacred.