Nahnatchka Khan: Bringing Relatable Stories from Diverse Communities to Life Although television played a huge role in my life, I hardly saw myself represented. My parents emigrated from Iran and I was born in Las Vegas and raised in Hawaii. Growing up, I thought Iran only existed on the news, and it was all negative and it never occurred to me then that it could be any different. It wasn't until I saw the Iranian WWF star "The Iron Sheik," who was a legend in my house, that I thought maybe we do exist outside of bad news reporting. Although he was portrayed as a villain, he was a hero in my family because it was the first time we saw someone who sounded like us.