Erbil, Iraq, 1932. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division. In April 2002, one year before the invasion of Iraq, Assyrians attempted to stage, as the organizing committee put it, the “greatest Assyrian New Year celebration since the fall of the Assyrian Empire.” Tens of thousands of Assyrians streamed in procession across the hills and market streets of Duhok in northern Iraq—one of the crucibles of their ancestral presence in the region. The festivities culminated in an open-air concert headlined by the popular singer Linda George, who at the age of fifteen had left Iraq for America, where she gradually established a global audience for her Assyrian-language pop, folk, and dance songs.