Now in 2017, after eighteen years since my father and my brother drove to Baaneh to buy an illegal VHS Player, after all the years of struggle to access news channels, blogs, and filtered websites in Iran, I sense the threat of dictatorship once again in America; in a different shape, with different purposes.

I tried to see myself as they saw me. A woman dressed like an astronaut. A rip in the fabric of normalcy.

In the Turkey of my youth, during the violent years, when the strife between the left and right had reached its peak, and when the propagandists and recruiters had staked out even grade schools, I had a confrontation with someone who was handing out fliers like candies at my school gate. Without even looking at the flier, I tore it up and flung it at him.