Diaspora

To pay or not to pay

Eyeglasses. There is no other accessory I love more than a nice pair of glasses. Purses are carried under my arm, shoes are on my feet but eyeglasses are on my face, adding a frame, personality, a different style. When I lived in Berkeley, I used to walk around Shattuck after class and go into the glasses store just for the heck of it. I fell in love with thousands of models.... from the trendy black plastic ones that make me look smarter than I am, to the nice metal frames that would be perfect for class, to the light white frame sunglasses that create the perfect contrast with my dark skin.>>>

Global man

It was 2003 I had put my few months old daughter to bed and was browsing through Iranian Times when I came across a collection of poetry. The poems frustrated, angered, and amazed me at times. The collection titled "One Should Not Sleep with Juliet and Not Be Romeo," and the poems were simply incredible. I followed his works and a few years later included some of them in the Other Voices International Project. It was then that I received e-mails from some American poets who believed they were the works of a literary genius. This voice belongs to no one but one of the most controversial contemporary poets of our time, Naanaam>>>

Ah, Los Angeles

This is the revised version of my Poem, "Ah, Los Angeles" first published in Persian in "Daftar-haye Shanbeh" No. 2, 1994 and then in English in Muddy Shoes (Beyond Baroque Books) 1999. The City of Venice, California engraved one of the stanzas of this poem on a wall in Venice beach at Boardwalk-Brooks in 2000.>>>

When will you see them all again?

The youngest is 12. If you look carefully at his small, expressive face, you will see a darkening hairline just above his upper lip. You want to stare at it, marvel at the promise of life it brings its owner and those who love him, but you can’t stare at a 12-year old boy. So you move on... Another is a pretty 14-year old, whose body has grown into curves which weren’t there last year, you could swear. You want to stare at the wild beauty of that gorgeous auburn hair, just like her mother’s, and watch the contour of that figure, memorizing it until the next time you meet, but you can’t stare at a 14-year old girl. So you move on...>>>

Repressive measures help pro-war forces

Detention and harassment of individuals, academics and NGO or political activists for expressing their ideas or promoting different cultural positions, are deplorable acts, regardless of the diverse contexts and vastly different dimensions in which they might take place, be it in the United States, Guantanamo Bay, Israel, the UK or any other place, including Iran. In addition to being abhorrent in their own right, such acts in a country like Iran which is threatened by warmongers in the west, also play directly into the hands of those determined to bomb Iran>>>

You get the picture

TEHRANGELES -- I was browsing iranian.com when I saw a link to a picture showing a women without hejab riding on the back of a guy on a street racer bike. I was thinking to myself how badbakht have we Iranians become when a picture of woman without a head scarf, in the year 2007, finds its way to the home page of a site with a lot of readers. A few moments later, I started reading the letters page. As usual, many well written letters with great content. While basking in the thoughts of how well some of my countrymen and women write in English, I came across a letter by the "individual" with the internet pen name of Issa Hajizadeh>>>

A chance to meet

With the recent defeat of the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill in the Senate, a major opportunity was missed to strengthen and improve our broken immigration laws. Although the proposed Bill was not perfect, there were areas that affected the Iranian American Community such as the H1B visas and sponsoring family members for green card. The Bill is dead for now, but the debate is not and there is a good chance that another Bill will surface in the next Congress. We, as Iranian Americans, must pay close attention to the new Bill and lend our voice to the debate as our community is for most part an Immigrant Community, meaning majority of us was born outside the United States>>>

The Tehrangelesazation of Brooklyn

East Tehrangeles. Not literally, of course. There aren't scores of 'Purshian' mafia running around with sharply gelled tips, fake boobs, and nose jobs. NOT YET. But I tell you, if the L.A. Persian hipsters ever find a way out of SoCal and get into tattoos, thrift shop chic, and adopting Asian babies, I think they would feel right at home in say, Park Slope or in the other colonized neighborhoods in BK. Why, you might ask. Because the kinds of people that have taken over Brooklyn's choice neighborhoods increasingly exhibit the same social ambitions and hang ups as my West Coast brethren. Smug sense of satisfaction with their zip codes? Check. Pride at being able to say they live in a particular neighborhood? Check>>>