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Every now and then Mr. Abbasi would be coming down hard on us due to the length of our hair. At times he would even go to extremes by showing up at our morning announcements with a pair of scissors in his hands, ready to cut off a sizable chunk of the hair of anyone that had already received a few warnings. As a result our local barber shop would always be populated with kids from our school. The barber shop was family owned by an older father and his two younger sons. Many times a grandson, not older than ten, would also be present and help around in the shop. During one of Mr. Abbasi’s raids, I headed for the barber shop in the early afternoon, hoping to beat the expected line. The shop was closed for lunch and afternoon napping but there were already a few people waiting outside. As we made small talk in anticipation of the shop’s opening, the grandson also appeared and went inside to prepare the shop for opening. A few minutes later he came back out with an innovation that very eff...
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Toronto’s newest cultural district was officially inaugurated Saturday in North York, bringing joy and excitement to the Iranian community in the city. Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow, Coun. Lily Cheng (Willowdale) and member of Parliament for Willowdale Ali Ehsassi joined Persian-Canadians at Centre Park to unveil Little Iran’s sign. “On this Thanksgiving weekend, I want to show my gratitude to the Iranian community for coming together, celebrating,” Chow said Saturday. “Today is really a historic day.” Centre Park was filled with live music, dancing, Persian food and desserts and art shows Saturday afternoon. But, soon, the park will also host its very own Persian garden. Afkham Mardukhi, president of the settlement organization Intercultural Iranian Canadian Resource Centre, said the acknowledgement is truly significant. “We really feel we have two homes,” she said. “It's just another layer of belonging, another layer of recognition by Canadians.” Iranian Women's Orga...
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Irene and I each had a picture frame hanging from our walls that, while slightly different, each depicted a couple of birds on a tree branch. As Irene’s hung on her wall on the left side I would normally remove it before starting to play soccer inside and hang it back up afterwards. On one occasion in which I forgot to do so, one of my crosses landed on the frame, knocking it off its nail and sending it crashing to the ground. As I cleaned up all the broken glass I realized that I probably would need to give her an explanation that in all likelihood would result in her keeping her bedroom door locked and thus put an end to my soccer games. As a result I retrieved my own bird frame from my room and hung it on her wall instead. I then took her frame and placed it under where it would have hung in my room. Later I would claim to have discovered it there and concluded that it must have fallen at some point. Although the birds in the two frames were different kinds and colors, Irene never...
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A woman who was handed a prison sentence for wearing a T-shirt that read ‘Allah is a lesbian’ is now facing her arm being amputated in jail, amid declining health. Ibtissame Lachgar, a feminist activist who campaigns on women’s and LGBTQ+ issues, was arrested in August 2025 and subsequently handed a two-and-half year prison term over the T-shirt, which was judged by the authorities to be offensive to Islam. In a post shared on social media on 31 July 2025, Lachgar is pictured wearing the garment and wrote: “In Morocco, I walk around with T-shirts bearing messages against religions, Islam, etc. You tire us with your sanctimoniousness, your accusations. Yes, Islam, like any religious ideology, is fascist, phallocratic and misogynistic.” The post prompted condemnation and threats towards the activist, with Lachgar later writing on her Facebook page she faced “cyber bullying, thousands of threats of rape [and] death, calls for lynching and stoning”, over a “T-shirt with a well-known (hijac...
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I gradually began making more requests to Peyman for mixed tapes and also acquired others from friends at school, mainly Sarraf. One particular tape that I got my hands on and ended up being one of my favorites was the soundtrack to the movie Breakin’ which had somehow come into Ardi’s possession. The first time we listened to it, Ardi, Peyman and I all thought it was an extremely stupid concept. “It sounds like someone decided to record every song, good or bad, played in the movie,” Peyman commented. I agreed with him about the absurdity of the process while also similarly being oblivious to the concept of a movie soundtrack, but at the same time I actually enjoyed the selection of songs. Part of the reason was that Peyman had previously made a tape of five of these songs where he manually recorded them off of the movie. In our version you could even hear the characters talking at times, the most distinct one being Turbo saying “Man now I know we’re in trouble!” right before Ain’t Nob...
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When the world feels like it's burning, some people retreat. Mandana Dayani builds. She is an Iranian attorney, businesswoman, brand expert, and media executive. From escaping post-revolution Iran to advising the White House, launching viral civic movements, and leading Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's media and philanthropic company Archwell, Mandana shares the moments that shaped her and the values that keep her grounded, outspoken, and unshakably hopeful.  " I was almost six when we left Iran, and you know,  t here were bombings almost daily with the rockets when the sirens would go off and the lights would go out, and  you  have to hide for hours on end just until we were allowed to go back up for safety. And one day, my dad there was an explosion and the impact from the bomb he went blind in one eye, and like the doctors and so many people that could have treated him were gone, an...
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Social studies was one of the subjects that everyone hated. Not only did we find it boring but what made it worse was that every week Mr. Maleknejad would spend half the period asking students to come to the board and answer questions about the previous week's lesson. They wouldn't even be so much questions but rather Mr. Maleknejad giving a section title and ask us to explain the entire section. To make matters worse he would grade us for our efforts. While he wouldn't do an exact average with whatever our written exam grade was for a total marking period grade, however, he would have our oral grade influence our overall grade.  I had been called to the board twice during the 1st marking period. The first time I had been completely unprepared (in spite of watching his routine for the previous few weeks). I had gone to the board and regurgitated what I had memorized the past few minutes for the section that I figured was next in line to be asked about. While I was ready to ...
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Hadi Partovi is a tech entrepreneur and investor, and CEO of the education nonprofit Code.org. Born in Iran, Hadi grew up during the Iran-Iraq war. After immigrating to the United States at age 11, he spent his summers working as a software engineer to help pay his way through high school and college. Upon graduating from Harvard with a Masters degree in computer science, Hadi pursued a career in technology starting at Microsoft where he rose into the executive ranks. He founded two tech startups that were acquired by Microsoft and Newscorp respectively, and he has served as an early advisor or investor at many tech startups including Facebook, Dropbox, airbnb, and Uber.  In 2013 Hadi and his twin brother Ali ‘94 launched the education nonprofit Code.org, which Hadi leads full-time as CEO. Code.org has established computer science classes reaching 30% of US students, created the most broadly used curriculum platform for K-12 computer science, and launched the global Hour of Code mo...
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