Iranian Diaspora Quotes

I was cut off by the azan sounding... I imagined... a neural network spread throughout the entire country and to the Iranian diaspora across the whole planet. I felt very Persian just then, even though I didn't understand the chanting. Even though I wasn't Muslim. I was one tiny pulsar in a swirling, luminous galaxy of years of culture and heritage. There was nothing like it back home. Maybe the Super Bowl.

There's something that happens to the newly displaced. Whatever power or choice that was stripped away in the process of reluctantly leaving one's homeland is fervently reclaimed in other situations, and honing in on the best spot to sit and enjoy a meal, be it at a restaurant or a lakeside, takes on the utmost importance. . . . If nothing else, we were always prepared for any and all circumstances and with plenty of provisions to see us through.

Time hasn’t eroded my essential Persianness. Instead, it has distilled it to a deep garnet glaze that drips an indelible pomegranate stain, with a trace of rose water that emanates from my pores, marked by the steady tone of the zarb played by the grandfather I never knew that tracks my sometimes stuttering heartbeat.

Like many Iranians in the diaspora, I was filled with hope and heartbreak as women and girls took to the streets after that incident because they had had enough. Enough of being controlled. Enough of being held down. Enough of having what they wore, what they said, and who they loved dictated by those who did not value their vibrancy, talents, skills, or dreams.

As more people posted online, I started to see something turn. Iranians began evaluating and opining about who was or wasn’t posting about the uprising. It turned into a sort of intense desperation that lashed out in flames. Our diaspora is at its worst when we see unrest in our homeland. It activates and agitates us toward judgment and mistrust of one another, and many of us feel retraumatized seeing the violence that those who remain are experiencing. I spoke with one Iranian friend who grew up most of his life in California. “It’s almost like everyone’s looking at this moment as the last days of the Islamic Republic. And anyone who’s not falling in line with the messaging or posting on social media is going to ruin the momentum for all of us,” he said to me over a long phone call during which we were trying to understand the digital finger-pointing that was going on.