Celebrating the Persian New Year in Ann Arbor

by Patricia Lesko

About 50 people from neighborhoods all over Ann Arbor attended a “Nowruz Neighbor” potluck at the Burns Park Senior Center on Sat. March 18 and wished each other “Sal-e Naw Mubarak,” or “Happy New Year” in Farsi, the official language of Iran. The Persian New Year’s celebration was the brainchild of Amir Kamouneh who, along with a group of volunteers, pulled together the festive gathering.

Amir Kamouneh’s daughters, Kim and Nikki, attended Northside Elementary (pre-STEAM) and Amir Kamouneh still lives on the north side in a house he’s owned for 22 years.

“I was known around Northside School as ‘The Bike Dad,'” said Kamouneh with a chuckle. “I had a bike trailer and took the girls home from school in it.”

His daughters are 21 and 19 now, one set to graduate from EMU with a degree in Mechanical Engineering and the other studying to be a Vet Tech.

In Feb., in response to President Trump’s Muslim Travel Ban, Kamouneh organized an event called Meet Your Muslim Neighbor. About 50 people attended that gathering, including several City Council members. Out of that event grew the idea of a Persian New Year (Nowruz) celebration to which Amir Kamouneh invited friends, relatives and neighbors.

He posted on Nextdoor: “YOU ARE INVITED TO NOWRUZ (New Day)!” Like the Meet Your Muslim Neighbor gathering, the idea was to bring muslims and non-muslims together to get to know each other. Unlike the Meet Your Muslim Neighbor event, where several City Council members spoke, no local elected officials attended the Persian New Year potluck. It’s a pity, because much of the talk among the neighbors who attended centered around local, state and national politics.

Nowruz (NO-rooz) is a secular holiday that marks the first day of spring and the beginning of the year on the Iranian calendar. It is celebrated on the Vernal equinox, which occurs on March 20 this year. While originally a Zoroastrian festival, the holiday now is celebrated and observed in Iran–where it is an official holiday lasting for 13 days–and many other parts of the world, including regions of Afghanistan, Azerbaijan and China.

(“Iranian” refers to nationality and “Persian” to ethnicity, and many Iranian-Americans use the terms interchangeably.)

In his invitation to his neighbors (which was reposted in Nextdoor neighborhoods all over Ann Arbor), Kamouneh wrote:

“Let there be laughter, love, life, and merrymaking, on this ‘New Day.’ Let’s show the world that Trump’s Muslim-Ban does not represent animosity between Americans and other peoples. Let the haters know, we love and treasure the diversity of other cultures and religions…
Nowruz has three major events:

1. ‘Festival of Light’ (Char-Shanbe-Soori) is held on the last Tuesday night of the year. This night is marked by fireworks, bonfires, good food and good company. We honor Ahura-Mazda’s (God) gift of fire to man, in order to vanquish the darkness of Ahriman (Devil) from the world.

2. ‘Spring Equinox’ (Sal-Tahvil) 2017 in Northern Hemisphere will be at 6:28 AM Eastern Time, on Monday, March 20. This represents the beginning of the Persian New Year. The families gather together, new clothes are worn, and gifts are exchanged.

3. ‘Nature’s Day’ (Sizdebedar) is held on the thirteenth day of spring (April 2.2017), during which people spend time picnicking outdoors. It is an official holiday in Iran, known as the Nature Day.”

There were traditional Persian dishes served for Nowruz, including sabzi polo.

The rice for sabzi polo is first parboiled and then tossed with herbs and leeks and layered into a preheated pan coated with butter and oil. As the mixture is spooned into the pan, the bottommost layer of rice sizzles, turning into the golden-brown crust known as tahdig, while the rest of the rice gently steams until the grains are fluffy.

Mana Heshmati is an engineer in Detroit who runs a pop-up restaurant called Peace Meal Kitchen. Ms. Heshmati, 27, and her family moved around the Midwest after coming to the United States in 1993, but the dish was a constant at the holiday table every year.

“The color of the food, and the symbolic meaning behind it, is as exciting as it tastes,” she said.

Along with Persian herbed rice delicacies, there were a variety of dishes representing cultures from around the globe, including gingerbread, pizza, borekahs, salads, fish, grilled chicken and even deviled eggs. Desserts included baklava, brownies, cakes, cookies and fruit.

The Ann Arbor neighbors who attended the potluck shared New Year’s wishes (in Persian) in a video that was uploaded to a site where similar videos were being shared from Nowruz celebrations throughout the U.S. A video of the Nowruz potluck attendees wishing Iranians world-wide a Happy New Year “Nowruz Mubarek” may be viewed below.