Call for papers – First night in Tehranto: Memories and reflections of Toronto’s Iranian immigrants

Toronto is home to the world’s second largest Iranian diaspora. The city that is colloquially referred to as “Tehranto” has become a site of lively Iranian restaurants, cafés, businesses, and cultural experiences. Researchers from Toronto Metropolitan University would like to document this thriving Iranian diaspora by collecting and sharing personal stories of immigration from Iran to Toronto.

We invite participants to share a memory or personal reflection of your early immigrant days, or your first night, in Toronto with a short personal essay of 1000 words and accompanying photography. Whether you arrived in the first wave of the 1980s or more recently, we would love to hear your stories.

Essays may be submitted in Farsi or English.

First time/emerging authors welcome.

Suggested prompts:

• Your first night in Toronto
  
• Your early immigrant days in Toronto
• A specific location (such as a favourite restaurant/café/grocery store, street, or neighbourhood) in Toronto that evokes memories and feelings of "home"

Please note that we will include submissions from individuals living in the Greater Toronto Area, including cities like Richmond Hill and Newmarket.

Deadline for submissions extended: March 9, 2025

Application deadline has closed. Thank you to all who have submitted.

Submissions must include:

• Name
• Email
• Phone number (optional)
• Your essay and accompanying photography (1000 word maximum for the essay)

This call supports the research project "Tehranto: Stories of Home and Belonging from Toronto's Iranian Diaspora," led by Nima Naghibi, English Department, TMU, and Amin Moghadam, CERC Migration, TMU, and is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).

Amin Moghadam is a Research Lead on the theme, Cities and Migration, at CERC Migration at Toronto Metropolitan University. His research explores connections between housing policies, diaspora politics and homeownership experience of Iranian immigrants in Toronto. Amin holds a PhD in Human Geography and Urban Studies from the University of Lyon II, France. His past research and publications have focused on migration policy and practices, diaspora studies, circulation and regional integration in the Middle East, with focus on the Persian Gulf region.

Nima Naghibi is Professor of English at Toronto Metropolitan University. She has written about the intersection of Western and Iranian feminisms and the 1979 feminist protests in Rethinking Global Sisterhood: Western Feminism and Iran (Minnesota Press, 2007), and on diasporic Iranian women’s life narratives in Women Write Iran: Nostalgia and Human Rights from the Diaspora (Minnesota Press, 2016). She has published essays and book chapters on diasporic Iranian memoirs, intergenerational trauma, and cross-cultural feminist exchanges in 20^th century Iran.