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Nowruz, the celebration of the Persian New Year, begins on the first day of spring. View in | Add ny
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Nowruz, the celebration of the Persian New Year, begins on the first day of spring.
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Sunday, March 19, 2017
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[The author, Shaya Tayefe Mohajer, left, and her parents in Orange County, Calif. in 1980.]
The author, Shaya Tayefe Mohajer, left, and her parents in Orange County, Calif. in 1980.
Shaya Tayefe Mohajer, an Iranian-American journalist in Los Angeles and a contributor to Race/Related, introduces us to Nowruz, which begins Monday.
With this weekâs vernal equinox, Iranians are preparing to celebrate the coming spring, which marks the Persian New Year. The holiday is a joyous celebration of renewal, with traditions handed down for thousands of years. Every year we leap over fire to chase away illness hiding in our bones. We prepare traditional feasts, exchange gifts and craft little secular altars our homes that[honor natureâs bounty](. Every little notion has meaning, and links us back to a country many have left. Like many of my generation, I have never celebrated Nowruz in Iran.
To understand Nowruz as Iranian-Americans experience it is to know: Even a beloved song about the spring holiday is[also a lament]( âThe New Year is here, Spring is here, and I am far from you⦠this Spring, if you see a tulip, remember me, remember me.â
The endless summer of my Southern California upbringing meant that spring itself was not always observable. As the holiday approached we would prepare traditional foods for guests, from the generously stacked dish baklava to my motherâs exquisite reshte polo, a rice-and-noodle pilaf studded with dates, raisins, fried onions and lentils. My father would bring home flowers by the armful and sing the seasonâs songs as he helped my mom prepare. They celebrated their culture through hospitality and home, and built countless fond memories for me, a child born in the Midwest to college students from the Mideast.
There is often a bittersweet feeling in celebrating from afar. In the 1980s and 90s, weâd still be dressed in our new clothes as we would dial and re-dial the phone number to our grandparentsâ house in Tehran. Weâd hush each other to listen to the hiss of the crackling phone transmission. Often the line would go dead. The operators were too busy.
Nowruz, laden with treats, gifts and happiness, always ran contrary to what I could observe about Iran outside our home â a sphere of media coverage that is darkened by frequent enmities. From revolution to prolonged war to reform; from fatwas to frustrations of a theological state that deems itself a democracy; from friendly mullahs calling for reform to frowning mullahs calling for the death of entire nations. Itâs hard to feel close to any of that, and itâs easy to recognize that it is an intellectually impoverished way to get to know a country and a people.
I know Iran most intimately through my parentsâ memories of a country that no longer exists â but that doesnât make their culture any less real to me. This living mythology and this emotional bond feels strong, though it dims with time and sorrow, as it did with the death of my father. We canât bring ourselves to spend the[traditional picnic day]( the way we used to, with thousands of Iranian-Americans converging on a suburban Irvine park to dance, sing, play soccer and stroll, running into long-lost friends from the old country.
The longing to feel closer may be why I hung on every word of a conversation I recently had with a young immigrant from Iran. As we chatted in Farsi, I stumbled over a thought and asked if she had trouble understanding me. She assured me I was clear, saying: âYou speak Farsi like a chic woman from northern Tehran.â
This chitchat is as close as I get, the closest I may ever get again, to Iran. The fresh push for American isolationism, perhaps, offers less clarity than ever. For me, the feeling of becoming a relic of a lost time is strong â but I feel no need to let go of these memories. All I can do is remember.
[Shaya Tayefe Mohajer](
[During Nowruz, everyone gathers around a haft sin, a table spread with seven symbolic items that begin with the letter S in Persian.]
During Nowruz, everyone gathers around a haft sin, a table spread with seven symbolic items that begin with the letter S in Persian. Mohammad Samim
Your Stories
Readers shared what Nowruz means to them:
Mohammad Samim, 40, New York City:
Nowruz is the biggest day of the year and itâs very family oriented. Over the last 10 years, Iâve been with my family maybe three or four times. My own parents never came, and I lost my mom in 2016. My wifeâs parents have come in the summer, but never for Nowruz.
But they are coming to spend two weeks here, and I am seeing my wife who lives in North Carolina and we will be driving through Washington, D.C. and Virginia. This is the only time a lot of people just try to forget their differences and disagreements theyâve had in the past year, and itâs an opportunity to get closer together.
--
Arash, 29, Indianapolis:
Itâs been over 11 years since weâve had the entire family together, and in Iranian culture we are just very close with our family. I havenât had the chance to see family members that Iâve lost; and my main concern is, something happens to them and I missed my opportunity on seeing them again. But Nowruz is the last of our worries. Iâm not traveling because my parents donât want my sister to feel alone. Â
She just finished her internship at Price Waterhouse Coopers and she was going to start full time there, but we donât know if sheâs going to get her H-1B visa. When I see her crying and her being sad itâs like everything Iâve read is not an exaggeration, itâs actually true. I was supposed to get my green card, and I was supposed to be happy; then I got it, and now itâs a useless piece of paper.
--
Ehsan Parizi, 35  and Lindsay Evans, 33, New York City:Â
Ehsan: Itâs very nostalgic and itâs kind of interesting because itâs not religious at all. Iâm obviously happy that Iâm going to visit my family [in Iran], but I kind of feel like everything is so unstable now and this might change in six months or a year, and this might be my last time that Iâm going to Iran in a long time. The feeling that things can change very quickly is not a good feeling.
Lindsay: I always describe it as the sort of Christmas or Thanksgiving of Iran. Itâs that moment where families come back together and break bread. Itâs very relatable particularly given the lack of understanding that does exist about Iranians that goes beyond the government. It feels like an act of defiance that we are going to Iran for Nowruz, given whatâs happening. By going and sharing our experiences with our friends and family when we come back means more people can learn more about a country that is so misunderstood.
(Mr. Parizi and Ms. Evans are married.)
[On the Nowruz menu: Fish stuffed with herbs, walnuts and pomegranate.]
On the Nowruz menu: Fish stuffed with herbs, walnuts and pomegranate. Michael Kraus for The New York Times
The Verdant Food of Iran
Fresh herbs, both raw and cooked, lie at the foundation of Iranian cuisine. Leaving them out would be like making Italian food without tomatoes or Japanese food without seaweed. In other words, nearly impossible.
[[READ MORE](
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A Far Cry From Africa
Where shall I turn, divided to the vein?
I who have cursed
The drunken officer of British rule, how choose
Between this Africa and the English tongue I love?
Betray them both, or give back what they give?
Derek Walcott
The poetry of Mr. Walcott, who died Friday, captured the legacy of colonialism and the complexities of living in two cultural worlds. [Read his obituary](.
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Take a look back at [Alpha Kappa Alpha]( the first sorority for African-American women.
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