I am the proud daughter of Iranian Muslim immigrants, and I am an American patriot.

Unlike my parents, I was born in the United States, and I grew up here. Like them, however, I was raised in a rich and vibrant Persian community.

Yes, right in the middle of the American heartland, my parents raised my sister and me among dozens of other Iranian families. We formed a diaspora born from the ashes of the so-called Islamic Revolution, the Iran-Iraq War — and the American imperialism that helped incite both.

Like my parents, many of my adoptive Iranian-American aunties and uncles in Dayton were physicians, products of the brain drain that swept Iran after the revolution and the war. They spent decades living and working in Ohio, where America benefited from the top-notch medical care they provided, and where, in turn, they benefited from the freedoms and opportunities that America provided.

Growing up, I remember gleefully heading toward Wright-Patterson Air Force Base on the Fourth of July, where my Uncle Abdi worked as a rocket scientist for the Department of Defense and served as a major in the U.S. Air Force Reserve. As a kid, I loved watching those fireworks, and as adults, so did my parents. After all, this wasn’t an entirely new tradition for them.

Today, my parents are both retired and living in Southern California, where they are members of an even larger Iranian-American community that now includes many of the same families we knew in Dayton. They’ve also started studying Spanish and adding avocado to nearly everything, including their noon-o-paneer (bread and cheese, standard Persian breakfast fare). - Melody Moezzi