Yonge street in Toronto, Canada is the longest street in the world. A section of it in the northern part of the city from Sheppard to Elgin Mills has seen such a concentration of diasporic Iranian settlement in the last 30 years that it has been affectionately renamed “Tehranto.” What once a predominantly Anglo-Saxon lower-middle class area has been remapped into one of North America’s most vibrant and highest density Iranian community. Taking a cue from Pierre Nora’s understanding of cultural monuments as sites of memory, this paper considers how the diasporic Iranian community has reshaped the suburban landscape of Toronto to evoke a romanticized and often nostalgic pre-revolutionary Iran. With restaurants organized and decorated to produce an experience of dining, for example, in a village in Gilan or among the ruins of Takht-e Jamsheed, these sites offer a nostalgic revisitation for older generations, and a mediated memory experience for the post-revolutionary generation in the diaspora.
- About
- Membership
- Publications
- Conferences
- Resources
- Awards
- Saidi-Sirjani Book Award
- AIS Book Prize
- Latifeh Yarshater Award
- Lifetime Achievement Award
- Best Dissertation Award
- Yarshater Book Award
- The Parviz Shahriari Book Award
- Princeton Book Award
- Hamid Naficy Book Award
- Neda Nobari Dissertation Award
- Conference to Journal Paper Award
- Graduate Student Research Award
- Mohammad Amini Memorial
- Initiatives