My family’s story begins in Iran, just before everything changed.

 

In 1978, my grandparents left Iran to study at university in England. At the time, it was meant to be temporary an education abroad before returning home. But a year later, in 1979, the Iranian Revolution began, and nothing was temporary anymore.

 

When the situation in Iran rapidly worsened, my grandparents’ parents came to England to visit them. They arrived with only two suitcases, expecting to stay briefly before returning home. Once they saw how serious the revolution was becoming, they realized they needed to go back to Iran to sell their properties and organize their lives. But it was already too late. Returning was no longer safe. If they went back, they risked imprisonment or execution.

 

My grandparents made the decision for them: you are not going back. That decision cost them everything. Their homes, their belongings, their stability all of it was lost. Two suitcases were all they had left to begin a new life in exile.

 

Eventually, my family migrated to Australia to rebuild their lives. While there, they went to the Iranian embassy to renew their passports. Instead, they were told they had been blacklisted by the Iranian government. Their passports were confiscated. The reason was clear: my grandparents had spoken publicly. They appeared on 60 Minutes, a major news program, and spoke openly about the executions taking place in Iran and the brutality of the revolution.

 

The embassy told them to return in a few days to retrieve their passports. But my mother knew better. She warned them not to go back that they could be detained, forcibly returned to Iran, imprisoned, or killed. They never returned to the embassy. That was the moment my grandparents lost their Iranian citizenship.

 

Even without a passport, we never lost our identity.

 

We remained deeply Persian culturally, linguistically, emotionally. We spoke the language, kept the traditions, and carried Iran with us wherever we went. Exile did not erase who we were.

 

I was born in Australia in 2009, surrounded by Persian culture. In 2012, I moved to Israel, where I grew up, learned Hebrew, and went to Israeli schools. I felt local, but I was never just one thing. I was Australian, Persian, and Israeli all at once. For a long time, my identity felt split. But my Persian identity was always the strongest it grounded me and gave me a sense of belonging when everything else felt uncertain.

 

Today, the current revolution and ongoing violence in Iran have reopened old wounds for my family. Watching civilians be killed is unbearable. My grandfather carries deep trauma from his childhood in Iran, where he was abused, and the memories have never left him. Now, they come back as anger constant, heavy, unresolved.

 

The regime has taken even more from us. My uncle was killed because of it. My aunt was imprisoned for years for educating Afghan immigrant children—children who had no access to education. Teaching them was considered a crime.

 

This is why this revolution matters. It is not history to us. It is not distant. It lives inside our family, our grief, and our anger. And it is still happening—largely unspoken, largely ignored.

 

All I hope for is freedom. Not just for my family, but for the countless others whose stories were silenced, erased, or never allowed to be told.