It was their own journey to freedom that taught Eric Namaky to embrace being who he truly is and inspired him to come out to his parents, who eventually learned to accept him.
Eric’s story begins like this :
My parents are originally from Tehran, Iran, where they were political activists in the late 70s. In 1979, the Shah shut down colleges and that created a vigour uproar of demonstrations. And both of my parents were heavily involved in that. The Shah was trying to control everybody and so he started killing students and my parents were on a list to be captured and killed where they would actually show up to my parents hometowns and go to their families trying to find them. So my parents had to go totally underground and leave the country, sneak into Turkey and they eventually snuck into Paris. And my sister was born in Paris and they lived there for two years. They came to the United States in 1985.
My parents and my sister moved from Paris to Cincinnati, Ohio, because my dad had an older brother who already lived in the States and my parents were looking for work just to get established. It was the only people they knew. And quickly after that, I was born and my parents moved to Cleveland because that’s where my dad got a job.
Below you can watch Eric tell his whole story about coming out.
Eric Namaky’s story is the latest to feature on LGBT story archive I’m From Driftwood.
