Tiburon celebrating Persian New Year, Nowruz, April 1 on Main Street

To Nooshin Navidi Latour of Tiburon, Nowruz brings back memories of the first time the California girl met her relatives in Iran.

“It was a heartwarming experience,” she says of the 2006 trip with her father. “It was a big deal. Twelve days celebrating the arrival of spring, with activities leading up to it and a picnic in the countryside on the 13th day. All of it with family.”

Her memories of celebrating the Persian New Year led Latour, who joined the town’s Diversity Inclusion Task Force earlier this year, to volunteer to organize Tiburon’s inaugural Nowruz festival, to be held 3-5:30 p.m. April 1 on Main Street.

The free event is open to the public, kicking off with Iranian music presented by DJ Teymour and featuring multiple performances, including the Nariman Assadi ensemble with strings and percussion, the Beshkan Dance Academy from San Jose.

Latour will also give an introduction to Nowruz and offer a brief dedication to the Iran Women’s Rights Movement, which has its roots in the Iranian Constitutional Revolution in 1910 but is again making international headlines. Women there are increasingly defying headscarf laws enforced by morality police under hardline president Ebrahim Raisi, who took power in 2021.

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