![\"Negar](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1775771238_490_.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\nAs the U.S. war with Iran continues, Iranian-Americans in Michigan said they\u2019re focused on finding a space for common humanity and connection to their heritage.<\/p>\n
Negar Dena Afazel was raised in Tehran before moving to Michigan. She\u2019s the founder and leader of the Kalamazoo Violin Choir, and an accomplished violin soloist herself.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would like to speak as an Iranian woman, a human, and an artist. I want to say how utterly I am appalled by the recent rhetoric regarding my people and my heritage and my culture,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
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Afazel said it\u2019s been an unimaginable time for immigrants from Iran in the past few months. And Afazel, like many others, still has friends and family in Iran.<\/p>\n
On Easter, President Donald Trump threatened<\/a> Iran with “hell” if the country did not open the Strait of Hormuz, a key corridor for oil shipment off Iran’s southern coast. And this week, he warned Iran that a \u201cwhole civilization will die<\/a>.\u201d The U.S. and Iran later agreed to a two-week ceasefire.<\/p>\n Afazel said the conflict\u2019s pushed her to make her voice heard. \u201cAs an artist, my work will no longer be just about, obviously, aesthetics or just the music itself, per se. It’s going to be a refusal, an act of refusal to be silenced,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cSeeing this aggression becoming so normalized, it’s very difficult to see, but at the same time, as an artist, it’s a push for me to not be indifferent,\u201d Afazel continued.<\/p>\n