A wake-up call from youtube: a horrifying video forced Pantea Sotoodeh to focus on what's going on in Iran, her parents' native country.

• Author: Sotoodeh, Pantea
• Position: VOICES

One day in June, I checked my Facebook page and casually clicked on a t[ink that one of my friends had posted. What I saw absolutely blew me away.

It was a video of a young Iranian woman named Neda Agha-Soltan being shot to death on the streets of Tehran, Iran's capita[. She was watching thousands of Iranians who took to the streets to protest the disputed results of the June 12 presidential election.

As Neda, a 26-year-old music student, watched the protest--she wasn't even participating--she was shot by a man believed to be part of a militia group backed by the government. He was standing on the roof of a nearby building, and Neda died in less than two minutes.

Both my parents grew up in Iran and Left around the time of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. I speak Persian fluently, and my family observes traditional Persian holidays, so I still feet very connected to Iranian culture. But I was born in the U.S. and have grown up in Southern California, so in some ways I'm quite removed from what goes on in Iran.

By the time I saw the Neda video, I knew that a number of Iranians had been kilted protesting the election results, but the news about the disputed election didn't realty affect me.

Seeing the video--which has been viewed on YouTube by hundreds of thousands and has come to symbolize the government crackdown against the protesters--was my wakeup call. I began paying attention to conversations my parents and other relatives were having about politics in Iran. And just as important, I started asking questions--of my parents, who were trying to get information from the few relatives...