My name is Hooman Khalili. I was born in Tehran, Iran, in 1974—into a Muslim family, into a nation already trembling on the edge of collapse. By the summer of 1978, the cracks in the Shah’s regime were visible to anyone paying attention. My mother, like so many others, could see the writing on the wall. She knew that if we didn’t leave immediately, we might be trapped in a civil war that would redefine the country—and our lives—forever.
