On the surface, Roya Hakakian doesn’t have much in common with Alexis de Tocqueville. Him: French. Her: Iranian. Him: Catholic. Her: Jewish. Him: an aristocrat. Her: the daughter of refugees who fled political oppression in Iran during the peak of the Iran-Iraq war.
But Tocqueville, whom Roya mentions in her essay below, illuminated for native-born Ameri…
