Out of all the Armenian families in the small California town where Richard Hovannisian grew up, Hovannisian grew up in an English-speaking household and didn’t know much about his heritage or Armenian history. Today, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Hovannisian is one of the leading experts on the Armenian Genocide who founded the Armenian Studies program at UCLA and is an adjunct professor at USC, where, for several years, he has advised USC Shoah Foundation on its Armenian Genocide testimony collection.