How Fatherhood Gave Me a Language to Resist Cultural Erasure

The view from Iran’s northwestern border was supposed to be magical. Instead, a decade ago, I saw desolate grasslands, just as the region’s post-Soviet rulers intended. I had followed in my father’s path. Years earlier, he convinced Soviet guards to let him wander among thousands of intricate khachkars (literally, cross-stones). Their carvings depicted daily life and biblical iconography. Beneath rested men and women whose diasporic legacies include Europe’s first coffeehouses. This was Djulfa.