Spacing

Signs of Tehranto: Lessons on Suburbs, Sentiments, and Survival

Driving north on Yonge St. towards the edge of Toronto, the Iranian enclave — frequently referred to as Tehranto — slowly emerges in North York. The script on large pylon and storefront signs slowly transitions from Korean to Persian as we travel north of Finch. Even with three lanes in each direction, we must weave past lumbering TTC and YRT buses stopping at each intersection and shoppers darting in and out of plazas. Eventually most signs are Persian, proudly announcing their offerings; from kebob-houses to currency exchanges, from grocery stores to dried nuts shops, and from real-estate agents to patisseries. The one-kilometre radius around the self-declared “Iranian Plaza,” halfway between Finch and Steeles on Yonge St., boasts the highest concentration of Iranian signage in not just the GTA, but probably in all of Canada.

Eighties Persian Pop blasts from speakers at Super Arzon in the Plaza. Sitting next to the food counter, Keykavous [Carlo] H. Zadeh, the smiling middle-aged business owner, proudly announces, “I was the one who named this plaza! The first ad I ran in the newspaper for the store read, 'Super Arzon at the Iranian Plaza.’ ” He waves his hands excitedly, holding up his twisted surgical mask in the air, “There was yet no Super Arzon, nor an Iranian Plaza!” H. Zadeh is justifiably triumphant — nobody has referred to the plaza by its official name, the Yonge Centre Plaza, since his store’s opening.

Since the 1980s, small Iranian stores had sporadically opened in North York to cater to the growing concentration of Iranians settling in the area. But the opening of the restaurant Mr. Kebob, and the general store Asy Max, started the move of Iranian establishments to Yonge St. in the late 80s and into the 90s. Super Khorak, the largest and most prominent Iranian store along Yonge, opened in a space a fraction of its current size in 1989. It was around the same time that The Yonge Centre Plaza next door slowly transformed to house more Iranian establishments. Super Arzon eventually opened in 2000.

“ ‘From kaleh-pacheh to mahvareh at Super Arzon,’ we would advertise,” landlord Parviz Haghgoo tells me, referring to the range of products available, from the traditional “head and hoof” soup to electronics like the satellite dish used for accessing Persian diaspora media channels. Super Arzon became a hub of Iranian activity: it connected services and vendors to the community, which attracted more Iranian businesses to the Plaza. It was the acquisition of more units at the Plaza by Iranians like Haghgoo that further lead to Iranian businesses like Dr. Karimi's Dental Office, Tak Photography, and Altona Kebob moving to the Plaza in the early 2000s. Today there are seventeen units in the plaza, with some further subdivided into three sub-units. Ten of these units are owned by Iranian landlords and only two businesses are non-Iranian operated. There are no vacancies, and the competitive nature of securing a unit at the Plaza suggests that these businesses are doing quite well. The demand for commercial space at the Plaza is so high in the Iranian community that rent prices compete with those on busy streets downtown.

Tehranto does not possess any of the qualities you might expect of urban enclaves such as Little Portugal or Little Italy - the sprawling Iranian enclave is suburban in nature. Tehranto is not one neighbourhood, but a strip of commercial activity consisting of strip malls fronted by parking lots facing Yonge St., which at times gets as wide as seven lanes. The area is also split between different municipal transit systems, further contributing to the convenience of car culture in the area. These plazas are destinations, not spots for casual wandering.

The suburban quality of the Iranian enclave can be directly tied to the timing and nature of Iranian immigration to Canada. From the second half of the twentieth century, Iranians have been responsible for a fast-growing diaspora around the world. All three waves of Iranian immigration (before the Revolution of 1979, immediately after, and the on-going wave since 1995) , have brought highly educated and skilled professionals to Canada, many of whom moved with financial assets from Iran. These three factors — education, capital, and time of arrival — have all directly shaped the formation and growth of the Iranian ethnic enclave in Toronto.

Like many diaspora communities, Iranians began to congregate together in a new country. If the general trend in other ethnic communities had been to move into the suburbs a few decades after arrival in Canada, when funds and jobs were secured, Iranians moved into the suburbs almost immediately. Yonge Street was the city’s main artery, and its northern end in the city housed a lot of opportunities for commercial spaces, making it an affordable location for Iranian businesses near where Iranians were purchasing homes. Today, the Iranian community’s continued movement north on Yonge Street parallels the development of the GTA. Given the suburban sprawl of the area, the urban typology of the community has become strongly car-dominant.

The signage at the Iranian Plaza distinctly features this influence of the automobile. The two-storey buildings that line the Plaza are covered by incredibly large and colourful signs; large roof-top billboards advertising real-estate agents, colourful canopy-mounted signs declaring store names, and posters on walls and windows displaying upcoming concerts by Iranian celebrities on tour. All this signage has been carefully arranged to be as visible as possible from passing cars and buses. The building-mounted signs use several strategies to stand out. The largest and most effective signs are mounted on the roof of the front colonnade through which the larger shops at grade are accessed.

Since the dominant typology along the Iranian commercial corridor is the strip mall, with stores set back from the street, pylon-signs are crucial to denote business locations and help with navigation while driving. These free-standing, sometimes multi-story signs, usually supported by poles, are often placed closer to the road or by plaza entrances near sidewalks or landscape buffers. At the Iranian Plaza, however, the sheer number of businesses caused the owners to forgo the pylon sign several years ago. According to City of Toronto bylaw 694.20, free-standing, ground-mounted First Party signs cannot exceed 0.3 square metres for each 1 metre of store frontage. This means the signs for a unit on the second floor of the Plaza, for which only a door leading to stairs counts as frontage, would be too small to be effective on a pylon sign.

Without pylon signs, businesses at the Iranian Plaza compete for real-estate on the buildings’ facade. To do their job, all the building-mounted signs are larger than the 20 and 10 percent of the facade areas respectively allowed for first and second floor businesses as per by-law 694.20. This caused a point of contention with the City when several businesses were told to take their signs down and re-apply for permits in the early 2010s. Some businesses changed their signage design in the process, but without further follow-up from the City, most businesses quietly reverted back to their large-scale signage.

Almost every available surface at the Iranian Plaza is used to communicate a message. This carries through not just the large scale of the block for drivers but also at the pedestrian scale. The colonnade and the covered walkway shelter the entrance to the stores and provide an extended threshold for pedestrian activity. Since the large signs mounted on top of the overhang and the walls are not seen from this pedestrian scale, smaller surface areas are used to designate different storefronts and create an interactive space to walk through. From vinyl graphics on windows and doors, sign boxes on top of doors, even printed pieces of paper taped to doors, no surface or method is spared to signal a business. With no frontage onto the colonnade, second floor businesses have been creative in their signage. In addition to vinyl graphics on the doors leading to the second floor units, the businesses also list their services on successive stair risers.

Brand recognition allows for more simplified signage. For example, established stores like Super Khorak and Super Arzon have stripped down their signs over time from listing every service and product available to just stating the business’ names. Similarly, some ground floor businesses have chosen to denote their branding by using finishes in the spaces directly in front of their stores. This way, they extend their businesses’ presence out into the colonnade. Jasmin Sandwich and Papa Bakery finish the surfaces of the floors, soffits, and columns in front of their storefronts with their brands’ colours and materials.

This clever use of branding goes beyond these design moves and manifests itself in the use of nostalgia. Besides historic events, individuals, or locations in the Iranian collective memory, businesses elicit sentimentality by referencing existing establishments in Iran, often without any actual connection to these businesses. “If you look at Iranian pastry shops in Toronto, [most] names [reference] old pastry shops in Iran,” Saeed Khakbaz tells me, the owner of the BB Café franchise which was named after the popular Tehrani destination Bibi Pastry. While he claims this is due to nostalgia, I suspect his business benefited from the presumed connection in the early years. This nostalgia also influences product selection as well. Despite BB Café’s offering of Western style pastries, the most popular items at their Iranian Plaza and Richmond Hill locations remain traditional Iranian baked goods that have lost their popularity in contemporary Iran. Production and management are similarly challenging since BB Café also caters to non-Iranian clientele with individually priced pastries, while satisfying the Iranian custom to purchase pastries in bulk, priced by weight.

This challenge to strike a balance between Canadian assimilation and creating a sense of belonging is also evident in BB Café’s use of Persian script in their signage. The pastry shop is indicated as Shirini-e Bibi (literally Bibi Pastry) in Persian and as BB Café in English. While both languages are reflected in the signage at their flagship location in the Iranian Plaza, the further their other stores are situated from Tehranto, the more prominent the sign for BB Café becomes, and the less you will find references to Shirini-e Bibi. By the time you arrive at their location in Etobicoke, with a significantly smaller Iranian population, there is not a single Persian letter in sight. Nothing except for the vinyl cut-outs announcing the other locations on the window links this café to those in Tehranto. This deliberate language choice in signage is not unique to BB Café. In Tehranto, the use of Persian script is less about utility and more about signaling belonging. The closer to the Iranian Plaza a business is, the more likely it is that they use Persian script prominently in their signage.

The complexities in the dynamics of the Iranian community in Toronto do not end at nostalgic signs competing with English lettering or shirini zaboon selling better at BB Café compared to éclairs. As the most evident manifestation of Iranian identity in space, Tehranto, and the Iranian Plaza more specifically, embody the varied and often opposing ideologies amongst Iranians. They act as mirrors reflecting the realities of politics and current events in Iran and within the Iranian-Canadian community. For instance, the sheer number of signs for currency exchanges in Tehranto are a direct result of the crushing international economic sanctions on Iran and the inability of Iranians to exchange capital through official channels. Signage in Tehranto can also act as an indicator of allegiances. Whether business owners display the pre-Revolutionary flag of Iran or images of the former royal family, whether they partake in Ashura ceremonies by putting up religious signage, or whether groups show their disdain for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s decision to keep the Canadian embassy closed in Iran using banners, signs can tell keen observers about business owners’ political leanings and even spaces to avoid or frequent in some cases.

In Tehranto, the sepia tone of nostalgia exists side-by-side with the realities of contemporary life in Iran. The continued connection to Iran, partially supported by ongoing immigration, is essential in sustaining many of Tehranto’s clientele who want to see Iranian flags and listen to Persian Pop while shopping for Iranian-made pasta. Haghgoo agrees, stating “This is a risk for the Iranian Plaza, another 10 years [of reduced number of immigrants from Iran] and everything will calm down, especially the exchange places.” Another challenge is development along Yonge St. Haghgoo believes that the lucrative nature of business and the high rents in the Iranian Plaza will deter landlords from unanimously agreeing to sell the land for redevelopment. But already, stores are closing and being replaced by condominiums at other plazas along Yonge with majority Iranian businesses. In the long term, it is through more cultural establishments, rather than commercial activity, that Iranian-Canadian identity will continue to be seen in space.

While there are several Iranian cultural establishments that currently exist in Toronto, they are not nearly as visible as the commercial businesses and are often divisive, catering to a subset of the community. Parya Trillium Foundation, the GTA’s Iranian community centre, is not located in this hub of Iranian commercial activity on Yonge St., instead located further east on Bayview. Meanwhile, the more established the Iranian community becomes in Toronto, the greater the opportunities are for those born after the Revolution (who are perhaps less fractured) to engage in the community culturally. It is in the next generations of establishments operated by Canadian-raised Iranians that some of the patterns described might change. We can see this in the trendy Iranian restaurants that have opened downtown.

What Iranians continue to build in Toronto does not have to be tied to physical urban space, however. The Iranian Plaza is an urban monument, permanently capturing identities in space. But spatial cultural heritage can also be built through consistent rhythms over time. Every two years, the arts festival Tirgan takes over Harbourfront Centre and other locations across the city to host what Tirgan organizers call the “world’s largest celebration of Iranian arts and culture.” Banners go up, signs are seen across the city, and Iranians leave Tehranto en masse to occupy downtown Toronto for several days. The signs of Tehranto are part of our identity as Iranian-Canadians, they reflect our history in our adopted home, and with the banners of Tirgan we can build new histories for future generations. The Iranian community’s diversity in Toronto, and the intersectional nature of the city itself, offer us a unique position to do so.

Back at the Plaza, both Khakbaz and H.Zadeh assure me that regardless of any changes, there will always be a community to leave Persian signs up for at the Iranian Plaza. “There could come a moment where we say we will put all of our focus on our non-Iranian clientele, but I don’t have that desire, to cut this system of operating … 100% our plan is to keep servicing our own community,” Khakbaz tells me. I am reminded of how the Persian letters along Yonge St. are signs of survival, of the economic success of a community, displaced for over forty years, fighting. Haghgoo shows me an image of the new sign he has been working on for the plaza. It proudly reads, “The Iranian Plaza,” to finally reflect the unofficial title in signage. And I wonder, what will we make of our survival?

Text by Paniz Moayeri, edited by Kurt Kraler

Signs of Tehranto: Lessons on Suburbs, Sentiments, and Survival

Driving north on Yonge Street towards the edge of Toronto, the Iranian enclave — frequently referred to as Tehranto — slowly emerges in North York. The script on large pylon and storefront signs slowly transitions from Korean to Persian as we travel north of Finch. Even with three lanes in each direction, we weave past lumbering TTC and YRT public transit buses stopping at each intersection and shoppers darting in and out of plazas. Eventually most signs are Persian, proudly announcing their offerings; from kebob-houses to currency exchanges, from grocery stores to dried nuts shops, and from real-estate agents to patisseries. The signs are a visual patchwork of colours and light, densely covering facades of old strip mall buildings. They come in a variety of sizes and materials: from small pylon signs outside plazas to vinyl window covers and large channel-letter storefronts signs. Some are coy, announcing businesses with translated or transliterated store names. Some do not bother catering to non-Persian speakers, announcing niche products in Persian: an apothecary for traditional Persian medicine, or a bakery selling sangak bread. The one-kilometre radius around the self-declared “Iranian Plaza,” halfway between Finch and Steeles on Yonge Street, boasts the highest concentration, and the largest range, of Iranian signage, in not just the GTA, but probably in all of Canada.

Eighties Persian Pop blasts from speakers at Super Arzon in the Plaza. Sitting next to the food counter, Keykavous [Carlo] H. Zadeh, the smiling middle-aged business owner, proudly announces, “I was the one who named this plaza! The first ad I ran in the newspaper for the store read, 'Super Arzon at the Iranian Plaza.’” He waves his hands excitedly, “There was yet no Super Arzon, nor an Iranian Plaza!” H. Zadeh is justifiably triumphant — nobody has referred to the Plaza by its official name, the Yonge Centre Plaza, since his store’s opening.

Since the 1980s, small Iranian stores had sporadically opened in North York to cater to the growing concentration of Iranians settling in the area. But the opening of the restaurant Mr. Kebob, and the general store Asy Max, started the move of Iranian establishments to Yonge Street in the late 1980s and into the 1990s. Super Khorak, the largest and most prominent Iranian store along Yonge Street, opened in a space a fraction of its current size in 1989. It was around the same time that The Yonge Centre Plaza next door slowly transformed to house more Iranian establishments. The first to arrive were an Iranian-owned vacuum-cleaner business and Darwish restaurant, both have since closed. Super Arzon eventually opened in 2000.

“‘From kaleh-pacheh to mahvareh at Super Arzon,’ we would advertise,” landlord Parviz Haghgoo tells me, referring to the range of products available, from the traditional “head-and-hoof” soup to satellite dishes used for accessing Persian diaspora media channels. Super Arzon became a hub of Iranian activity: it connected services and vendors to the community, which attracted more Iranian businesses to the Plaza. It was the acquisition of more units at the Plaza by Iranians like Haghgoo that further lead to Iranian businesses like Dr. Karimi's Dental Office, Tak Photography, and Altona Kebob moving to the Plaza in the early 2000s. Today there are seventeen units in the Plaza, with some further subdivided into two or three sub-units. Ten of these units are owned by Iranian landlords and only two businesses are non-Iranian operated. There are no vacancies and the competitive nature of securing a unit at the Plaza suggests that these businesses are doing quite well. The demand for commercial space at the Plaza is so high in the Iranian community that rent prices compete with those on busy streets in downtown Toronto. This competition for business has driven the patchwork of signage that defines the Plaza today.

Tehranto does not possess any of the qualities you might expect of urban enclaves such as Little Portugal or Little Italy — the sprawling Iranian enclave is suburban in nature. Tehranto is not one neighbourhood, but a strip of commercial activity consisting of strip malls fronted by parking lots facing a widened Yonge Street. The area is also split between different municipal transit systems; TTC services reach as far north as Steeles Ave., requiring commuters to transfer over to YRT and pay an additional fare. This further contributes to the convenience of car culture in the area. These plazas are destinations, not spots for casual wandering.

[diagram 5 – side bar timeline of the three waves in Iranian immigration]

The suburban quality of the Iranian enclave can be directly tied to the timing and nature of Iranian immigration to Canada. From the second half of the twentieth century, Iranians have been responsible for a fast-growing diaspora around the world. All three waves of Iranian immigration (before the Revolution of 1979, immediately after, and the on-going wave since 1995), have brought highly educated and skilled professionals to Canada, many of whom moved with financial assets from Iran. These three factors — education, capital, and time of arrival — have all directly shaped the formation and growth of the Iranian ethnic enclave in Toronto.

Like many diaspora communities, Iranians began to congregate together in a new country. If the general trend in other ethnic communities had been to move into the suburbs a few decades after arrival in Canada, when funds and jobs were secured, Iranians moved into the suburbs almost immediately. Yonge Street was the city’s main artery, and its northern end in the city housed a lot of opportunities for commercial spaces, making it an affordable location for Iranian businesses near where Iranians were purchasing homes. Today, the Iranian community’s continued movement north on Yonge Street parallels the development of the GTA.

The signage at the Iranian Plaza distinctly features this influence of the automobile. The two-storey buildings that line the Plaza are covered by incredibly large and colourful signs; large roof-top billboards advertising real-estate agents, colourful canopy-mounted signs declaring store names, and posters on walls and windows displaying upcoming concerts by Iranian celebrities on tour. All this signage has been carefully arranged to be as visible as possible from passing cars and buses. The building-mounted signs use several strategies to stand out. The largest and most effective signs are mounted on the roof of the front colonnade through which the larger shops at grade are accessed.

[image 8 – photos of pylon signs from other plazas]

Since the dominant typology along the Iranian commercial corridor is the strip mall, with stores set back from the street, pylon-signs are crucial to denote business locations and help with navigation while driving. These free-standing, sometimes multi-story signs, usually supported by poles, are often placed closer to the road or by plaza entrances near sidewalks or landscape buffers. At the Iranian Plaza, however, the sheer number of businesses caused the owners to forgo the pylon sign several years ago. City of Toronto signage bylaws define the largest allowable size for an individual pylon sign based on the respective store’s frontage on the street. This means the signs for a unit on the second floor of the Plaza, for which only a door leading to stairs counts as frontage, would be too small to be effective on a pylon sign.

Without pylon signs, businesses at the Iranian Plaza compete for real-estate on the buildings’ facade. To do their job, all the building-mounted signs are often oversized, far exceeding the maximum size set by the City of Toronto signage bylaws. This caused a point of contention with the City when several businesses were told to take their signs down and re-apply for permits in the early 2010s. Some businesses changed their signage design in the process, but without further follow-up from the City, most businesses quietly reverted back to their original signage.

Almost every available surface at the Iranian Plaza is used to communicate a message. This carries through not just the large scale of the block for drivers but also at the pedestrian scale. The colonnade and the covered walkway shelter the entrance to the stores and provide an extended threshold for pedestrian activity. Since the large signs mounted on top of the overhang and the walls are not seen from this pedestrian scale, exterior surface areas of the colonnade are used to designate different storefronts and create an interactive space to walk through. From vinyl graphics on windows and doors, sign boxes on top of doors, even printed pieces of paper taped to doors, no surface or method is spared to signal a business. With no frontage onto the colonnade, second floor businesses have resorted to creative strategies to attract attention. In addition to vinyl graphics on the doors leading to the second floor units, some businesses also list their services on successive stair risers.

[INCLUDE IMAGE OF STAIR RISER SIGNS]

Brand recognition allows for more simplified signage. For example, established stores like Super Khorak and Super Arzon have stripped down their signs over time from listing every service and product available to just stating the businesses’ names. Similarly, some ground floor businesses have chosen to denote their branding by using finishes in the spaces directly in front of their stores. This way, they extend their presence out into the colonnade. Jasmin Sandwich and Papa Bakery for example, finish the surfaces of the floors, soffits, and columns in front of their storefronts with their brands’ colours and materials.

This clever use of branding goes beyond these design moves and manifests itself in the use of nostalgia. Besides referencing historic events, individuals, or locations in the Iranian collective memory, businesses elicit sentimentality by referring to existing establishments in Iran, often without any actual connection to them. “If you look at Iranian pastry shops in Toronto, [most] names [reference] old pastry shops in Iran,” Saeed Khakbaz, the owner of the BB Café franchise, tells me. The franchise is named after the popular Tehrani destination Bibi Pastry. While he claims this is due to nostalgia, I suspect his business benefited from the presumed connection in the early years. This sentimentality also influences product selections. Despite BB Café’s offering of Western style pastries, the most popular items at their Iranian Plaza and Richmond Hill locations remain traditional Iranian baked goods. Production and management are similarly challenging. BB Café locations further out from the centre of Tehranto, must also cater to non-Iranian clientele with individually priced pastries, while satisfying the Iranian custom to purchase pastries in bulk, priced by weight.

This challenge to strike a balance between Canadian assimilation and creating a sense of belonging is also evident in BB Café’s use of Persian script in their signage. The pastry shop is indicated as Shirini-e Bibi (literally Bibi Pastry) in Persian and as BB Café in English. While both languages are reflected in the signs at their flagship location in the Iranian Plaza, the further their other stores are situated from Tehranto, the more prominent the sign for the English BB Café becomes, and the less you will find references to the Persian Shirini-e Bibi sign. By the time you arrive at their location in Etobicoke, with a significantly smaller Iranian population, there is not a single Persian letter in sight. Nothing except for the vinyl cut-outs announcing the other locations on the window links this café to those in Tehranto. This deliberate language choice in signage is not unique to BB Café. In Tehranto, the use of Persian script is less about utility and more about signalling belonging. The closer to the Iranian Plaza a business is, the more likely it is that they feature the use of Persian script in their signage.

The complexities in the dynamics of the Iranian community in Toronto do not end at nostalgic signs competing with English lettering or the traditional shirini zabon selling better at BB Café compared to éclairs. As the most evident manifestation of Iranian identity in space, Tehranto, and the Iranian Plaza more specifically, embody the varied and often opposing ideologies amongst Iranians. They act as mirrors reflecting the realities of politics and current events in Iran and within the Iranian-Canadian community. For instance, the sheer number of signs for currency exchanges in Tehranto are a direct result of the crushing international economic sanctions on Iran and the inability of Iranians to exchange capital through official channels. Signage in Tehranto can also act as an indicator of allegiances. Whether business owners display the pre-Revolutionary flag of Iran or images of the former royal family, whether they partake in the politico-religious Ashura ceremonies by putting up religious signage, or whether groups display banners showing their disdain for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s decision to keep the Canadian embassy closed in Iran, signs can tell keen observers about business owners’ political leanings and even spaces to avoid or support in some cases.

In Tehranto, the sepia tone of nostalgia exists side-by-side with the realities of contemporary life in Iran. The continued connection to Iran, partially supported by ongoing immigration, is essential in sustaining many of Tehranto’s clientele who want to see Iranian flags and listen to Persian Pop while shopping for Iranian-made pasta. Haghgoo agrees, stating “This is a risk for the Iranian Plaza, another 10 years [and with a reduction in the number of immigrants from Iran], everything will calm down, especially the exchange places.” Another challenge is development along Yonge Street Haghgoo believes that the lucrative nature of business and the high rents in the Iranian Plaza will deter landlords from unanimously agreeing to sell the land for redevelopment at that location. But outside the popular Plaza, there is a looming threat of development displacing Tehranto businesses. In order to maintain Iranian-Canadian presence on Yonge St in the long term, emphasis should be made on creating more distinctly cultural spaces that aren’t subject to the whims of the economy and market forces the way that businesses on the commercial strip are.

While there are several Iranian cultural establishments that currently exist in Toronto, they are not nearly as visible as the commercial businesses. For instance, the Parya Trillium Foundation, GTA’s Iranian community centre, is not located in the hub of Iranian commercial activity on Yonge Street, instead located further east on Bayview. This dispersion is, in part, a reality of suburban life. But it also reflects that despite the capital, the elected politicians from the community, or the Iranian-Canadian community’s high education levels, we have a long way to go to heal, to trust each other, while Iran remains in turmoil and its aftershocks reach us here. Iranian cultural establishments can be divisive and discounted, complicated by the community’s internal distrust and polarization born out of decades of justified fear and trauma pre-and-post-Revolution.

Meanwhile, the more established the Iranian community becomes in Toronto, the greater the opportunities are for those born after the Revolution (who are perhaps less fractured) to engage in the community culturally. It is with the next generations of establishments operated by Canadian-raised Iranians that some of the patterns described might change. We can already see this shift with the trendy Iranian restaurants that have opened downtown which utilize the same techniques of nostalgia but in new ways that also attract non-Iranians.

[images of Banu, Pomegranate, Tavoos, or Shahzad restaurant signs]

What Iranians continue to build in Toronto does not have to be tied to physical urban space, however. The Iranian Plaza is an urban monument, permanently capturing identities in space. But spatial cultural heritage can also be built through consistent rhythms over time. Every two years, the arts festival Tirgan takes over Harbourfront Centre and other locations across the city to host what Tirgan organizers call the “world’s largest celebration of Iranian arts and culture.” Banners go up, signs are seen across the city, and Iranians leave Tehranto en masse to occupy downtown Toronto for several days. The signs of Tehranto are part of our identity as Iranian-Canadians, they reflect our history in our adopted home, and with the banners of Tirgan we can build new histories for future generations.

Tirgan is about not entirely losing ourselves to assimilation and creating space for kids of the diaspora whose only testament to the culture of Iran is whatever their parents teach them at home, which is constantly negated by how the west frames Iran. Something like Tirgan gives a sense of pride to the next generations.

Considering that for the last several decades, the Iranian regime has systematically erased traditional art and culture. I grew up in Iran but I never once saw a traditional dance or music on media besides things that people had kept hidden since before the revolution or things that people smuggled in from the Iranian diaspora in LA. Tirgan is not just about preserving culture for the diaspora but conserving Iranian culture - period. Every time Tirgan happens Iranians everywhere around the world get videos and other media from it on social media. It’s powerful. Scholars come and give lectures about things that they would be imprisoned for if they talked about it in Iran.

Tirgan is pan-national. It is the one and only event that actually connects the Iranian diaspora in one place and gives us context, makes us see that there are Iranians everywhere. People come from all over the world to perform and present. It gives people room to express themselves through art - and hopefully - to eventually heal. Iranians have had to become skilled at hiding large parts of their lives since in Iran, they have to hide half of what we do from the government to survive. Furthermore, in the diaspora, Iranians have to hide their culture to try and fit into white culture and to avoid the regime spies. Iranians are afraid to express themsleves because the consequences are severe, especially if a person still has a connection to Iran or falls outside the norm defined by the majority including queer and trans folks. Tirgan might teach fellow Iranians to speak out and see each other.

Tirgan could not happen outside of Toronto. For one, it is funded by all three levels of government through grants. Second, Toronto has the Iranian population to sustain something of this size being the second largest Iranian population outside Iran, after Los Angeles. And most importantly, it is a young diaspora. People in LA have been there since the revolution and are disconnected from the Iran of today. In Toronto, the community still has connections to Iran. And then of course, Toronto being a mega-multicultural place is helpful since there is a cultural festival every other week, which is not the same in Europe and most American cities.

Back at the Plaza, both Khakbaz and H.Zadeh assure me that regardless of changes, there will always be a community to leave Persian signs up for at the Iranian Plaza. “There could come a moment where we say we will put all of our focus on our non-Iranian clientele, but I don’t have that desire, to cut this system of operating … one-hundred percent, our plan is to keep servicing our own community,” Khakbaz tells me. I am reminded of how the Persian letters along Yonge Street are signs of survival, of the economic success of a community that has been fighting itself and the world for space while remaining displaced for over forty years. Haghgoo shows me an image of the new sign he has been working on for the Plaza. It proudly reads, “The Iranian Plaza,” finally cementing the long-unofficial title in signage form.

This essay includes research from Paniz Moayeri's graduate thesis, supervised by Dr. Anne Bordeleau. Citation: Paniz Moayeri, 2019, Your Passport Doesn’t Work Here: Asylum, Space, and Iranian Queer Heritage, UWSpace, [http://hdl.handle. net/10012/14401].

in layout

PANIZ TO UPDATE BASED ON RECENT EVENTS.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This essay was completed in early 2022, before the death of Mahsa Amini while in Iranian police custody. Since then, there have been worldwide protests with at least 50,000 people protesting in Toronto alone. Despite internal divisions within the community, the Iranian diaspora have come together to advocate for the freedom of women and girls in Iran.