About Me.
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My parents came to Canada in the 1980s, and settled on unceded territories of Huron-Wendat, the Seneca, Haudenosaunee and the Mississaugas of the Credit River. They came as a result of open immigration policies that encouraged resettlement of refugees, regardless of income level or country of origin. They would have had a much harder time today.
I was raised in the predominantly immigrant community of North York, speaking Farsi at home and English at school. I went to Syracuse University for four years and learned a lot about community organizing and inter-community literacies, but it was only after graduation that I realized I wanted to pursue my writing seriously. The last couple years have been blessed with plenty of opportunities to reconnect with my Iranian roots, and develop a more nuanced and complex understanding of what it means to be a non-Black POC in spaces that intrinsically silence Black and Indigenous voices. The achievements that I have been able to receive would not have been possible without the help of the BIPOC communities that I am part of, and without the work of Black organizers and activists who fought for civil liberties. I am interested in stories that delve into the messiness of life in the diaspora. I want to be part of the movement of BIPOC voices in Canada that are exercising agency in their own stories, and I'm thrilled to be part of communities like BIPOC TV and Film and Mirchi Comedy that have been able to create platforms and communities for marginalized voices in predominantly white spaces. I’m not interested in being the only voice, but rather, in being part of a movement adding to the legacy of the Iranian diaspora in Toronto. EDUCATION
Syracuse University- Writing, Rhetoric and Composition; Citizenship and Civic Engagement; Policy Studies Graduated Magna Cum Laude Class Marshal 2017 EXPERIENCE / SKILLS
Video Production Adobe Creative Cloud Copy-Writing Social Media Management COMMUNITIES/GROUPS
BIPOC TV and Film Mirchi Comedy Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity Firefly Writing |