The Foreign Service Journal, April 2011

A P R I L 2 0 1 1 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 41 hen I was awarded a Fulbright fellowship to Armenia for the spring 2010 academic term, many people asked me why I had selected that country. After all, it is not a well-known place, at least not in North America. I responded that while I had traveled outside of the U.S. a fair amount, I wanted to go to a region that I had never been to before, and a country that was off the beaten path by Western standards. Given that Armenia only gained its in- dependence in 1991 after the fall of the Soviet Union, I thought it would be very interesting to teach and do research in a society that is slowly transitioning from communism to capitalism. The Fulbright program conducts a three-day orientation in Washington, D.C., for all grantees going to Eurasia/East- ern Europe. The program explains the history and social norms of the region (my specific area was the Caucasus, which includes Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan) and its diplomatic relationship with the United States and neigh- boring countries. In addition, previous Fulbright grantees to the region share their individual experiences. While much of the orientation was applicable to me, the presenters did not — and, to be fair, probably could not — address the extreme differences in how I would be treated, relative to their experiences, because of my race. I’m visibly non-white, unlike the presenters, who were all white. I had expected to cause a bit of a stir in Armenia, but judging from the reaction it seemed more like a superstar celebrity tour/ circus freak show/the-aliens-have-landed spectacle. Becoming a Local Celebrity From the moment my plane landed in the capital city of Yerevan, things became interesting. The population is about 98-percent Armenian, so foreigners, especially non-white ones, are unusual. The customs agent did a double take when she saw me and, then, motioned to her colleagues to come quickly to stare at me (look! look!). Pointing is not con- sidered to be rude in Armenia at all. There were about a hundred or so people waiting for ar- riving passengers and, upon my entrance, all conversation ceased while they stared, pointed and made comments in Armenian and Russian (most Armenians speak both lan- guages). It was like I had parted the Red Sea, judging by the expressions of amazement on people’s faces. This behavior occurred all day, every day, everywhere for the entire three-and-a-half months that I was in Armenia. Small children gazed wide-eyed at me on the street and, from what I could tell, asked their equally amazed parents what — not who — I was. At museums and tourist attrac- tions, people took pictures of me, instead of the actual stat- ues, artwork or monuments. Schoolchildren with their teachers paused from their tours to gawk and to discuss the educational experience that I provided. Meeting neighbors in my apartment building involved a very long staring contest and whispered discussions. It was A N A FRICAN -A MERICAN F ULBRIGHT S CHOLAR IN A RMENIA T HERE ’ S NEVER A DULL MOMENT DURING A SEMESTER SPENT TEACHING AT A UNIVERSITY IN Y EREVAN . B Y R OCHELLE P ARKS -Y ANCY Rochelle Parks-Yancy, an assistant professor of management in the Jesse H. Jones School of Business at Texas Southern Uni- versity in Houston, spent the spring of 2010 in Yerevan as a Fulbright Scholar. She is the author of Equal Work, Unequal Careers: African-Americans in the Workforce (First Forum Press, 2010). W