B. Allen-EbrahimianOvjeren akaunt

Iranian lives are not less valuable than American lives.

We’re not even talking about the travel ban any more—it’s disappeared into the memory hole apparently — but my baby son hasn’t met any of his family because they can’t come to the US, not even for a visit. Will he ever get to meet them?

I live with this heaviness all the time. The ban. The time my husband, who looks really Middle Eastern, was assaulted after the Boston Marathon bombing and I cleaned up the blood from his arm. The way so many Americans despise Islam while knowing nothing about it.

I never talk about it on Twitter. I never talk about how this whole time, my family is already living what Chinese in America are afraid of happening to them.

We bought a house with a bedroom on the first floor—which limited our housing options in this area—so my mother in law wouldn’t have to go up and down stairs when she came to stay with us when I had a baby. We have the baby, but her bedroom is empty.

My son had a major medical emergency when he was 3 months old, and I thought, he will die without ever having met his grandmother or aunts or uncles. And for what? Are we safer because a grandmother can’t see her newborn grandson, not even when he is at death’s door?

(He’s fine now).

I keep all of this inside because it is somehow easier to deal with that way. Like the way my own brother supports the travel ban. 10 words, a betrayal beyond comprehension.

Let there not be a war. Please. Let there not be a war.

When people go on TV and say that it is time to start sending planes over the Iranian homeland, I think, no, my Maryam is there. And my Ali. And my Sedigheh. You cannot sent planes there, you might hurt them. They are there and they have my heart, you cannot do that.