Harleys and healing: Armenian bikers' heartwarming toy drive at UCLA

Erin Connors | December 21, 2023

Twelve staffers in purple scrubs stood at the entrance of the UCLA Mattel Children’s Hospital, last Tuesday, December 12. A growling motorcade of three Harley Davidsons and U-Haul truck pulled into the lot, cut their engines, and parked. Six men in leather vests approached the hospital staff and shook hands. Together, they rolled up the U-Haul door and assessed the truckload of children’s toys.

The hospital team represents the Chase Child Life Program, dispersing wish list items to critically ill pediatric patients. The men are members of the Hye Riders Armenian Motorcycle Club, an international social club with members in Armenia, France, Lebanon, and Syria. The Los Angeles chapter was founded by Berj Kasbarian in 1998. In addition to monthly rides, the LA Hye Riders organize toy drives, food delivery, visits with the elderly, and charitable trips to Armenia, where they take clothes, blankets, and toys to communities in need.

The Hye Riders donated their annual toy drive to UCLA Mattel after an introduction from the Fowler Museum at UCLA. In June 2023, Fowler curator Gassia Armenian organized Remain in Light: Visions of Homeland and Diaspora, featuring photographs of Armenia and Los Angeles by three diaspora-born Armenian artists living in LA—Sossi Madzounian, Ara Mgrdichian, and Ara Oshagan. Except for images of Mount Ararat or the Areni wine caves, most photographs could have been taken anywhere in the world. They were less depictions of place than of shared customs, language, and memories: the “light” that has guided Armenians’ survival at home and rebirth in diaspora.

The LA Hye Riders hail from Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Glendale, and are children and grandchildren of survivors who escaped the Armenian Genocide of 1915. They intimately understand longing for home, and the harshness of immigration. They find solace and joy in giving back to the Los Angeles community that has embraced them. For Gassia, this cross-culture dialogue across time and space was baked into the exhibition from the start. The Hye Riders, like the artists, have mined great loss to recalibrate and rebuild the joy of community in the U.S. With one foot in Armenia and one foot in LA, they continue to evolve social fabric of Armenian life in the diaspora.