What are the motifs in Black Dog of Fate: A Memoir by Peter Balakian?

Ethnic awareness, and the role of that awareness in the life of Peter Balakian as he becomes an adult, is recurring idea in the book. The entire first half of the novel deals with how Peter learns to identify with Armenian culture before he is even aware of what that culture really means. Peter knows his family values delicacies and aesthetics, and he knows their food choices are different from that of other family's