It doesn’t cost me much from my armchair to support this action, but I do feel honor-bound to discuss it.

A master’s student in our laboratory worked closely with me on a good part of her project, defended it and her capacity to carry on, and obtained a competitive Ph.D. fellowship to carry out a project in another group. (Mutual decision based on a number of factors.) She is Iranian but has grown up a good portion of her life in the south of France, for political reasons. Her father still works in Tehran, though he travels fairly freely, and they are clearly among the educated and privileged. Aside from her mother, all the rest of her family is still there.

With parents and siblings during her adolescence, they outfitted a caravan not to peruse the American West Coast and national park systems, but to drive from France through Turkey into Iran on an annual basis during summer vacation for a number of years. Until they came across a particularly thick border crossing guard, at which point they decided that this innocent adventure had become somewhat risky.

One year ago, she married a Frenchman in Tehran in the most magazine-worthy series of wedding photographs I believe I have seen among any of my acquaintances. His parents came and learned to esteem the cultural diversity to which they were introduced in Iran. As usual, far beyond what one is exposed to outside of a given country. Visiting from within, as guests of residents with a multicultural perspective, they tried different regional cuisines and received the most personalized of guided tours. She gave me a taste of it (over dinner in Paris, complete with recipes that I’ve tried out to the pleasure of my own multicultural family), and it was delightful.

This summer, she can not visit that Iranian home, for fear of the airports being closed, her passport being confiscated, or attracting a member of her family to the wrong place at the wrong time. She adamantly believes that the election was rigged, but is most worried that people she loves may be caught in the cross-fire. Not all of her compatriots are so lucky.