Join us for a storytelling session at the Lynnwood Library

We will share the story of Nowruz, an ancient secular holiday celebrating the first day of Spring by 300 million people across the globe.

We will have children art and culture activities following the storytelling session.

You are invited to join us for Nowruz in Olympia as we celebrate the New Year.

We are gathering at the Capitol Building in Olympia to advocate for the recognition of our collective identities.

We will enjoy traditional food and refreshments alongside a display of the traditional haft seen table, performances of dance by Soraya Arjomand and Parmida Ziaei , and an exhibition of visual art by Peyvand Artists and other local community artists. Come dressed in your cultural attire to proudly showcase your heritage, and enjoy Hanif Zarrabi-Kashani dressed as Baba Nowruz.

Speak Up! Take Action! Create Change!

NAAPR (New American Alliance For Policy & Research), in collaboration with Peyvand nonprofit, Kabul Washington Bridge and a coalition of other community-based organizations, will convene the New Americans Legislative Education and Advocacy Day at the Washington State Capitol on Thursday, February 27, 2025. We hope you'll be able to join us to advocate with and on behalf of our refugees and other displaced people.

Our goal is to increase refugees’ visibility, contributions and challenges.

Know Your Place is a slice-of-life drama set in present-day Seattle. Robel Haile (15, Eritrean-American) and his best friend Fahmi Tadesse (15, Ethiopian-American) embark on a journey to drop off a suitcase with medicine and cash to a friend traveling back to Eritrea because of a family member’s sudden illness. An unexpected turn transmutes Robel’s simple errand into an odyssey across the rapidly gentrifying city, navigating directions to make his delivery on time, along with the challenges of familial responsibility, self-identification, and dislocation amid the ongoing redevelopment and displacement of the only community he’s ever known as home.

In “The Dawn is Too Far: Stories of Iranian-American Life” we share the powerful narratives of individuals from the Bay Area Iranian diaspora community, who contribute to and creatively respond to their history, and indeed add to the richness of this region.

At a time when immigrants, primarily from black and brown communities--from Mexico, to the Caribbean, and the Middle East-- have been vilified and stereotyped as criminals, drug-runners and terrorists, it is especially important to hear the real story of immigrants.

Q & A with the director following the show.

This documentary is about the life of “Habibeh”, a self-taught painter who, according to her, has created 4000 works with her special tools and techniques during seven years. For “Habibeh”, art is a medium to endure the imposed and unwanted sufferings of her life. Habibeh’s works had not been widely displayed until the making of this film.

There will be a discussion session following the film.

A timely documentary film about exiles in America and the families they left behind, MOUTH HARP IN MINOR KEY sheds light on the dynamics of our contemporary times, beset by globalization and consolidation of capital and media, on the one hand, and by fragmentation and disruptions of nation-states, on the other.

In this film, Iranian filmmaker Maryam Sepehry follows the eminent film scholar Hamid Naficy in the United States and his family in Iran. It is a documentary portrait that elucidates the complexities of personal identity in a globalized world, where individual, national, and transnational forces interact.

Q & A with the director following the show.

Senior Lecturer at University of St. Andrews School of Modern Languages, Dr Saeed Talajooy studied and taught English & world literatures in English in Iranian universities and through his teaching became interested in how ideas, characters and images travel across genres, cultures and historical periods.

Jamshid, an Iranian American school counselor, builds a world-class Ultimate Frisbee team from the immigrant and refugee students arriving at his inner-city public school in Seattle.

An intrepid filmmaker tracks the Taliban’s first year in power in the wake of the United States’ Afghanistan withdrawal, centering on an air force chief and a low-level fighter as the fundamentalist sect takes over a former American military base known as the Hollywood Gate complex.

As the Taliban takes over Kabul, the staff of Afghan newspaper the Etilaat Roz weigh their options: submit to the censorious new regime, continue their award-winning reporting on corruption, or escape their homeland forever.

As the Taliban takes over Kabul, the staff of Afghan newspaper the Etilaat Roz weigh their options: submit to the censorious new regime, continue their award-winning reporting on corruption, or escape their homeland forever.