Introduction

This essay examines nostalgia not as a private emotion but as a social force that shapes diasporic identity and political imagination. A genealogical method—following Michel Foucault and David Garland—allows one to trace the contingent paths through which selective memories acquire authority and shape current ideologies. The result is a history of how longing becomes a political project.

Garland describes genealogy as a way of charting the irregular routes through which the past arrives in the present. It reminds us that memory is neither linear nor inevitable. For diasporic communities, this insight exposes the instability of stories about “back home.” Such narratives evolve through a process of exchange and reaction within transnational networks. When new geopolitical tensions arise, especially between Iran and the United States, older memories can be reactivated and redeployed for political ends.

Kathleen Stewart’s description of nostalgia as both cultural practice and representational form illuminates this process. Within the Iranian diaspora, remembering becomes an act of social positioning. Among neo-monarchist circles—often composed of families whose prosperity peaked under Pahlavi rule—nostalgia functions as a claim to refinement and modernity. Others, including those who recall the regime’s censorship or repression, experience that same nostalgia as exclusionary or dangerous. Its meaning shifts with the storyteller.

Hamid Naficy observes that the exilic condition creates a longing for a homeland that no longer exists in its remembered form. The “impossible return” is not a failure of will but a structural feature of exile. Among those who fled after 1979, this impossibility fuels an attachment to the image of a lost Iran whose perfection grows with distance. The remembered country becomes a horizon that recedes as one approaches it.

The idea of recovery extends this dynamic. Neo-monarchists often describe their movement as a reclamation of national dignity or cultural coherence. In practice, recovery entails the reanimation of a mythic narrative in which the Pahlavi state embodied enlightenment and progress. This narrative omits the regime’s system of surveillance, the suppression of political dissent, and the widening gap between the privileged and the poor.

Historical revisionism sustains the project. Modernization campaigns such as the White Revolution are celebrated as triumphs of development, while their coercive dimensions fade from view. Recasting history in this way legitimizes a politics of restoration. Some diaspora activists draw upon this framework to justify alliances with U.S. organizations that advocate punitive sanctions or military intervention in Iran. Nostalgia thus becomes a moral alibi: it cleanses the memory of empire and repurposes it as evidence for a future return to monarchy.

A Walk Through “Tehrangeles”: Spatializing Nostalgia

Photograph of Pars Books & Publishing storefront in Westwood, Los Angeles.

The “Tehrangeles” neighborhood illustrates how nostalgia occupies space. Along Westwood Boulevard, traces of a once-vivid cultural corridor remain visible in faded storefronts and weathered signage. In 2017, Ketab Corporation, the largest Persian bookstore in the area, closed after thirty-six years. Its replacement, a marijuana dispensary, marked something more profound than a commercial change; it reflected the shifting terrain of diasporic life. Across the street, Pars Books and Publishing persists, its window draped with the pre-Revolution Lion and Sun flag. Inside, the shelves offer glowing accounts of the Shah’s rule and volumes lamenting 1979 as national catastrophe. The shop functions as both archive and shrine, preserving a royalist vision of Iran.

Spaces like these act as repositories of collective memory. Their books and memorabilia promise continuity for readers who fear cultural disappearance. Titles such as Andrew Scott Cooper’s The Fall of Heaven: The Pahlavis and the Final Days of Imperial Iran circulate among them as confirmation that an authentic Iran survives in exile. The display of the Lion and Sun flag, far from decorative, signals allegiance to an imagined political order that equates monarchy with civilization itself.

Neo-Monarchists, January 6, and the Intersection of Diasporic and U.S. Politics

Photograph of Iranian Americans during the January 6, 2021 Capitol insurrection.

That these nostalgic imaginations can translate into reactionary politics was made starkly visible on January 6, 2021. Amid the chaos at the U.S. Capitol, a group of Iranian monarchists brandished the Lion and Sun flag, signifying an alignment with far-right populist movements in the U.S. Some prominent neo-monarchists had already been vocal supporters of Donald Trump, partly because of his hawkish stance against the Islamic Republic and the broader “America First” narrative that resonated with their anti-regime fervor.

My research draws on Donya Alinejad’s The Internet and Formations of Iranian American-ness to examine how neo-monarchist rhetoric flourishes on social media. In Facebook groups like “Supporters of Prince Reza Pahlavi” (in Farsi), which boasts over 60,000 members, images, memes, and superimposed text valorize the Shah’s rule. The online format amplifies nostalgia’s ability to reach large audiences, effectively constructing a digital archive of curated history that feeds into a unified (if highly selective) narrative. The resulting discourse frequently repeats themes: the monarchy was “modernizing,” the Shah was “benevolent,” and Iran under the Pahlavis commanded global respect.

Exemplary Neo-Monarchist Imagery

1. Map of Iran with Poetic Plea

A graphic features Iran’s map alongside the verse “Dearer to me than life and religion / You are my dearest, O’ land of Iran,” twisting an old slogan—“God, the Shah, and the Country”—into a new form that places Iranian nationalism above religious or other affiliations. In this reimagined hierarchy, national identity supersedes all else, thereby distancing itself from the Islamic Republic’s theocratic framework.

2. Comparative Meme of Bows

A meme juxtaposes photos of President Obama bowing to Emperor Hirohito in 2016 with Emperor Hirohito bowing to the Shah in 1969, highlighting a supposed historical moment when Iran’s leader commanded greater respect. Through a single, decontextualized image, the meme fosters a powerful sense of aggrieved nostalgia for “lost greatness,” reinforcing the narrative that Iran was once at the center of global affairs.

3. Skiing Shah and Queen Farah

A snapshot of the Shah and Queen Farah holidaying in the Swiss Alps is superimposed with text about how the monarchy stood at the cusp of “rapid progress” and near-future democracy. This glamorous scene, however, omits the lived reality of many Iranians under authoritarian rule—a contrast that betrays the selective nature of neo-monarchist memory.

Institutionalization of Neo-Monarchist Nostalgia

Organizations such as Iranian Americans for Liberty (IAL), founded in 2020, translate this digital energy into institutional form. Through affiliated political committees, IAL organizes media campaigns calling for maximum pressure on Tehran. Its policy proposals mirror the priorities of U.S. neoconservative networks and envision the eventual re-establishment of a constitutional monarchy. Farashgard (“Iran Revival”) and the Constitutionalist Party of Iran, both based in Southern California, maintain close ties with IAL and with Republican politicians in Washington. Together they sustain a transnational infrastructure that projects royalist nostalgia into mainstream policy debates. Within these alliances, longing functions as political capital—an affect that legitimizes aggression abroad while idealizing hierarchy at home.

Conclusion: The Regressive Pull of Neo-Monarchist Nostalgia

Hamid Naficy once observed that nostalgic longing often yields division rather than unity. His warning resonates here. The dream of a benevolent monarchy obscures the authoritarianism that defined the Pahlavi state and recasts inequality as modernization. A genealogical approach exposes the silences that support this dream. The glorification of the Shah erases the voices of rural workers, religious minorities, and dissidents who bore the costs of his rule. By substituting myth for history, neo-monarchist nostalgia risks reproducing the very exclusions that helped ignite the 1979 Revolution.

The diaspora, however, contains many trajectories. Numerous Iranians abroad reject both the Islamic Republic and the call for royal restoration. Others focus on art or humanitarian work rather than on regime change. Yet royalist activists often claim to speak for all, producing the illusion of unanimity.

The persistence of nostalgia raises urgent questions about how diasporic politics intersect with global power. When longing for an imperial past becomes a guide for political action, democratic possibilities recede. The genealogical method insists that history remains open—that the path from memory to future is shaped by the stories we choose to tell. Understanding how neo-monarchist nostalgia operates clarifies the stakes of building political identity upon an imagined past.

Nostalgia, Diaspora, & Iranian Neo-Monarchists: A Genealogical Exploration of Longing and Politics