Porochista Khakpour - Brown Album: Essays on Exile and Identity

In the beginning there was the wordPersian.

It was imaginary, belonging to a place that no longer exists, the realm of dusty maps and fairy tales and myths, and yet for my entire childhood it described who I was. We said Irani among Iranians, but among Americans, Persian was the name of the game. I said it because my parents said it. Only later did I sense the shame of Iran in an era when Iran equaled hostage crisis and revolution.

Unless you are talking about one of the inhabitants of ancient Persia, Persian connotes the language of those from provinces where it is spoken or physical objects from modern-day Iran (just as Oriental refers to objects from East Asia). But while technically incorrect, Persian often equates with Iranian if you are trying to sugarcoat the name of a nationality that has been historicallyand currently!seen as controversial for too long.

I had tactics as a child: I hid inside the American costumes I worepunk, cowgirl, starletand took on Persian only when I had to. Once in a while a baffled peer would ask: But whats Persian? Arent you from Iran? Id spin the wheel in my brain and let the arrow land on the many somethings, anythings, I had cobbled: Its the label for Islamic Republicdisliking Iranians! Its what Iranians who used to be fancy prefer! It refers to a state in Iranuh, state of mindI mean, an actual stateyes, thats it!

My stress was hideous. My Oriental best friend (Wheres Orienta? a classmate asked her once) and my Persian self were perpetually rolled up into ourselves like, well, discount rugs.

As I grew older, I said Iraniannever mind the labels problematic past, I was concerned with owning its problematic present. In America at least, Iranian identity has never not been newsworthy, from the hostage crisis to todays Muslim ban. After the September 11 attacks I began insisting on using it over Persian. I didnt want to stand for more convenient euphemisms.

Little did I know 2012 would herald The Return of the Persian. At least according to the Bravo cable channel, which that year unveiled the reality series Shahs of Sunset, from Ryan Seacrest Productions. The show follows a group of well-heeled friends in Los Angeles, and Persian is thrown around as if Iranian never existed. But who could blame them? It was a bad time for Iranians.

Since 9/11, we have been living in a winter of discontent after more than three decades of discontentment. Israel, Iran, and the United States play messy games of geopolitical cat and mouse and musical chairs across the ocean, and the temperature has plunged to cold-warring with sanctions that have hurt Irans people while helping the regime. Hot-war talk hastened, but the old World War III nightmare continues to be dangled only as a threat.

For Iranianshere, there, anywhereit means living with the tangles of neurotic defense and justification. In the endless hangover from the glory of ancient empire, we dissect old realities complicated by new contexts, we explain to others, we explain to ourselves: knotty on-and-off flings with the West; the dysfunction of church and state; extra-religious fundamentalism fronting to mask secular economic feuding. It all adds up to never-ending identity angst that perhaps only an American can understand.