Vartan Gregorian: An Immigrant Who Became a “One-Man Academy of Arts, Letters, and Humanities”

Celebrate your citizenship, Vartan Gregorian advised immigrants, but also accept the solemn obligations that citizenship brings

By Carnegie Corporation of New York June 29, 2021
Immigration
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Like many other immigrant forefathers of ours, we have come not only to enjoy the benefits of America but to contribute to its development, to its growth, and to its welfare. We have come to contribute to the achievement of what is left undone or unfinished in the agenda of American democracy. We have come to contribute to that perfect union. — From remarks made by Vartan Gregorian, late president of Carnegie Corporation of New York, at his naturalization ceremony in Philadelphia, February 7, 1979

Like Andrew Carnegie, Vartan Gregorian, the late 12th president (1997–2021) of Carnegie Corporation of New York, was a naturalized United States citizen who believed that the civic integration of immigrants was of great importance to the health of American democracy. An Armenian born and raised in Tabriz, Iran, Gregorian arrived in America in 1956 to attend Stanford University and became, as the New Yorker observed, a “one-man academy of arts, letters, and humanities,” rising to the highest levels of higher education and philanthropy.

Gregorian began his academic career as a teacher of European and Middle Eastern history. By 1978, he was serving as the 23rd provost of the University of Pennsylvania, responsible for guiding its overall educational mission, a post he held until 1981. It was during his tenure at Penn that Gregorian applied to become a United States citizen. At the official ceremony in 1979, he was asked to deliver remarks on behalf of the 77 newly naturalized citizens from 27 countries who had just taken the oath. “We know America is not perfect, but we see it as perfectible,” Gregorian said. “For us, America is not just a past; it is also a future. It is not just an actuality — it is always a potentiality. America’s greatness lies in the fact that all its citizens, both new and old, have an opportunity to work for that potentiality, for its unfinished agenda.”

The first foreign-born president of both the New York Public Library and Brown University, Gregorian observed in a 2018 essay for Carnegie Reporter magazine, “In retrospect, I am amazed at the generosity my adoptive country showed me. I was a foreign student with scant financial resources and limited abilities as an English speaker. I was the first person in my family to attend a university. Had someone told me that I would go on to become a professor, a provost, and a president, I would have considered that a fantasy conjured up by an addled mind. But astonishing things happen in our country — and they will continue to happen. America invested in me and saw me as a citizen. It is a debt that I can never fully repay, though I have tried.”

During Gregorian’s service as president of the Corporation, from 1997 until his death in 2021, he developed programs to advance immigrant naturalization and civic integration. To acknowledge and celebrate the many important contributions of immigrants to American democracy, he founded the Great Immigrants Great Americans initiative in 2006.

“Today, immigrants remind us more than ever of what is right about America. By going to such lengths to become American, they honor those of us lucky enough to be born American,” wrote Gregorian in his Carnegie Reporter essay. “Many of them come to our country from societies that are either oppressive or simply lacking in opportunity. Yet each new arrival brings with him or her an element that enriches our culture. In their faith, their love of family, and their patriotism for their adopted land, these future Americans have done so much — and will do so much more — to unite us.”

Today, immigrants remind us more than ever of what is right about America. By going to such lengths to become American, they honor those of us lucky enough to be born American.

Vartan Gregorian

Richard Stengel, former editor of Time magazine and an MSNBC analyst, remembers first meeting Gregorian when Stengel was named president and chief executive officer of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia in 2004.

“One of the first things he told me was that I should host immigration ceremonies at the Constitution Center,” Stengel recalls. “I said why. He asked me if I’d ever been to one. I said no. Go, he said, and you’ll see. I did. There, at the federal courthouse, families from dozens of nations, from babies to great-grandparents, usually in their national dress, colorful saris and dhotis and dashikis and sarongs and ponchos and turbans, crying for joy because they had waited years, sometimes decades to become Americans. It was magical and moving. We started hosting them once a month.”

In 2018, Gregorian spoke at a naturalization ceremony at the John F. Kennedy Library:

Today we celebrate your citizenship, but we also ask you to accept the solemn obligations that citizenship brings. Today is a rite of passage. You will soon be a part of something bigger than yourself, the United States of America. That is what I felt when I was about to be sworn in as a citizen of the United States. Like you, I was full of joy, trepidation, and hope. I remember the tears in my eyes as I swore that I would “support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America.” It felt as if I were getting married again, and once more vowing my devotion “till death do us part.” As a citizen of the United States, I have tried to live up to the challenge JFK so famously issued to us and to the nation in his inaugural address: “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”

So what can you, this country’s newest citizens, do for your adopted homeland? Challenge us and help us to do better. As citizens of this country we can — and we must — participate in the work of our democracy. That means undertaking a myriad of small actions, most of which do not take place on Election Day. Read, learn, listen to others, help your neighbors, speak out against injustice, and vote! Study our nation’s glorious past as well as its trials, tribulations, and tragedies. By doing so, you fulfill your rights and obligations as citizens.

A Selection of Remarks, Videos, and Essays on Immigration by Vartan Gregorian

Top: (Credit: Celeste Ford)

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