Writing Tehranto: Stories of Toronto's Iranian Diaspora

There is a stretch of land on Yonge street in Toronto, from north of Sheppard past Elgin Mills, where nostalgia for a former home, in this case, Tehran, Iran is entrenched into the urbanscape. This area, known among the Iranian diaspora as Tehranto, houses a significant number of Iranian businesses: grocery stores, restaurants, cafés, hair salons, law offices, money exchange stores, and real estate brokerages. The transformation of “Tehranto” from a predominantly White Anglo-Saxon farming community to a hub of diasporic Iranian culture and cuisine alongside a growing Korean population is the focus of this project. 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. The Toronto Iranian community is a growing and increasingly visible immigrant group in Toronto, with stories to share about their immigration to this city. In my larger project, I am interested in collecting stories “Tehrantonians” are telling about themselves, and about Toronto and Tehran. How are they shaping their personal narratives of immigration, of home, and of belonging? How do their stories map onto and interact with localized narratives of Toronto and Tehran?