Identity Theft
By Janan Golestané
My second-generation,
Iranian-Canadian
voice
speaks without an accent
in English.
It’s been known to recount
my many fortunes as the
daughter of an
Iranian woman who chose to leave Iran.
She, the only one of seven siblings to immigrate.
Me, the only one of my maternal family born with basic rights and freedoms.
My second-generation,
Iranian-Canadian
perspective
was then that I gained immensely
from my mother’s departure from Iran.
I won the lottery of opportunity
and a passport that would take me places
my family in Iran could only dream of.
My second-generation,
Iranian-Canadian
voice
speaks with an accent
in Persian.
Once it began reciting
Zan
Zendegi
Azadi1
in support of the youth risking everything to reclaim Iran,
it began recognizing
my many misfortunes as the
daughter of an
Iranian woman with no choice but to leave her home.
She, the only one of seven siblings in exile.
Me, the only one of my maternal family planted in distant, unfamiliar lands.
My second-generation,
Iranian-Canadian
perspective
is now that I paid a high cost and
took an immense loss
to grow freely and
with opportunities
someplace
my ancestors never set foot.
An entire diaspora,
robbed of our
homeland,
language,
culture,
family,
loved ones,
identity.
An entire nation,
robbed of our
selves,
self-expression,
self-determination,
free choice,
individuality,
identity.
Stolen versions of who we each
could’ve,
would’ve,
should’ve been.
Me, an Iranian that
could
bloom on the land she descended from,
would
seamlessly recite Persian poetry in her mother tongue,
should
sit in her spot around the sofreh2 with her people,
like her ancestors did.
Empty spots around a sofreh,
in place of fully constructed identities,
representing those
killed,
imprisoned,
exiled,
displaced,
oppressed,
robbed.
Identify theft
on a mass scale
added to a rap sheet of atrocities
spanning over 45 years.
So, I’ll keep using
my second-generation, Iranian-Canadian voice
to reclaim what was stolen
ta ba yek seda
be azadi bereseem.3
Writing under a pen name, Janan Golestané was forever changed—like so many Iranians and others—by the Woman Life Freedom movement. As a second-generation Iranian-Canadian woman for whom it is unsafe to set foot in the Islamic Republic of Iran, she was inspired and compelled to dive into her heritage, working to strengthen her mother tongue of Persian and reconnect with her cultural roots. She has since studied and memorized famous poems in their original language by such poets as Omar Khayyam, Rumi, Saadi, Sohrab Sepehri, Rudaki, and Baba Taher. In solidarity with Iranians fighting for freedom, this her debut published poem shares the journey of how her sense of self and belonging to the Iranian community was permanently altered by the Woman Life Freedom movement, as well as her commitment to sustained resistance against the Islamic Republic of Iran’s tyrannical and oppressive regime.
Photo credit: Nina Haghighi via a Creative Commons license.
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