Dumas - Funny in Farsi: a memoir of growing up Iranian in America

A humorous and introspective chronicle of a life filled with loveof family, country, and heritage.

J IMMY C ARTER

Charming funny This is a gentle life story by an author who clearly loves her fellow man, and who is dedicated to pointing out the deliciously absurd aspects of both American and Iranian culture; as such, it is a joyful success.

Newsday

Delightfully refreshing Dumas stories have universal themes people of any culture could understand. One way of saying funny in Farsi is khandedar. The book lives up to the word, in any language.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

[Dumas] is a humorist at heart, seeking out the goofy underbelly of even the most tragic situations and sketching out a delightful pastiche of Iranian rituals and beliefs, quirkily modified as the years go by and her family gradually grows less Iranian and more Californian.

Time Out New York

A hilarious collection of essays [that] easily translates to the experiences of immigrants from any part of the world. The book brings us closer to discovering what it means to be an American.

San Jose Mercury News

Recommended Today, as Middle Easterners in the United States are subject to racial profiling, stereotyping, and sometimes violence, this book provides a valuable glimpse into the immigrant experiences of one very entertaining family.

Library Journal

Light-as-air essays warm and engaging.

Kirkus Reviews

FINALIST, PEN/USA AWARD IN CREATIVE NONFICTION
FINALIST, AUDIE AWARD, BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR
FINALIST, THURBER PRIZE FOR AMERICAN HUMOR

My thanks to Bonnie Nadell for taking a chance on an unknown, for the title, and for always being a pleasant voice on the other end of the line; to everyone at Villard Books, in particular my talented editor, Bruce Tracy, whose intuition, fine-tuning skills, and great laugh made this a dream project, and Jynne Martin; to F.D., N.K., and S.M. for making my heart sing; to L.P., C.K., K.K., and the Thursday hiking group for showing me that all hills must be climbed in the company of friends; and to my relatives, all of whom laugh without an accent, merci.

Please note that in English, the preferred name for the language spoken in Iran is Persian. The word Farsi is used in the title of this book for humorous alliteration. As Farsi is a term for the language used by some Persian speakers, saying I speak Farsi is akin to saying I speak Espaol.

When I was seven, my parents, my fourteen-year-old brother, Farshid, and I moved from Abadan, Iran, to Whittier, California. Farid, the older of my two brothers, had been sent to Philadelphia the year before to attend high school. Like most Iranian youths, he had always dreamed of attending college abroad and, despite my mothers tears, had left us to live with my uncle and his American wife. I, too, had been sad at Farids departure, but my sorrow soon fadednot coincidentally, with the receipt of a package from him. Suddenly, having my brother on a different continent seemed like a small price to pay for owning a Barbie complete with a carrying case and four outfits, including the rain gear and mini umbrella.

Our move to Whittier was temporary. My father, Kazem, an engineer with the National Iranian Oil Company, had been assigned to consult for an American firm for about two years. Having spent several years in Texas and California as a graduate student, my father often spoke about America with the eloquence and wonder normally reserved for a first love. To him, America was a place where anyone, no matter how humble his background, could become an important person. It was a kind and orderly nation full of clean bathrooms, a land where traffic laws were obeyed and where whales jumped through hoops. It was the Promised Land. For me, it was where I could buy more outfits for Barbie.

We arrived in Whittier shortly after the start of second grade; my father enrolled me in Leffingwell Elementary School. To facilitate my adjustment, the principal arranged for us to meet my new teacher, Mrs. Sandberg, a few days before I started school. Since my mother and I did not speak English, the meeting consisted of a dialogue between my father and Mrs. Sandberg. My father carefully explained that I had attended a prestigious kindergarten where all the children were taught English. Eager to impress Mrs. Sandberg, he asked me to demonstrate my knowledge of the English language. I stood up straight and proudly recited all that I knew: White, yellow, orange, red, purple, blue, green.

The following Monday, my father drove my mother and me to school. He had decided that it would be a good idea for my mother to attend school with me for a few weeks. I could not understand why two people not speaking English would be better than one, but I was seven, and my opinion didnt matter much.

Until my first day at Leffingwell Elementary School, I had never thought of my mother as an embarrassment, but the sight of all the kids in the school staring at us before the bell rang was enough to make me pretend I didnt know her. The bell finally rang and Mrs. Sandberg came and escorted us to class. Fortunately, she had figured out that we were precisely the kind of people who would need help finding the right classroom.

My mother and I sat in the back while all the children took their assigned seats. Everyone continued to stare at us. Mrs. Sandberg wrote my name on the board: F-I-R-O-O-Z-E-H. Under my name, she wrote I-R-A-N. She then pulled down a map of the world and said something to my mom. My mom looked at me and asked me what she had said. I told her that the teacher probably wanted her to find Iran on the map.

The problem was that my mother, like most women of her generation, had been only briefly educated. In her era, a girls sole purpose in life was to find a husband. Having an education ranked far below more desirable attributes such as the ability to serve tea or prepare baklava. Before her marriage, my mother, Nazireh, had dreamed of becoming a midwife. Her father, a fairly progressive man, had even refused the two earlier suitors who had come for her so that his daughter could pursue her dream. My mother planned to obtain her diploma, then go to Tabriz to learn midwifery from a teacher whom my grandfather knew. Sadly, the teacher died unexpectedly, and my mothers dreams had to be buried as well.

Bachelor No. 3 was my father. Like the other suitors, he had never spoken to my mother, but one of his cousins knew someone who knew my mothers sister, so that was enough. More important, my mother fit my fathers physical requirements for a wife. Like most Iranians, my father preferred a fair-skinned woman with straight, light-colored hair. Having spent a year in America as a Fulbright scholar, he had returned with a photo of a woman he found attractive and asked his older sister, Sedigeh, to find someone who resembled her. Sedigeh had asked around, and that is how at age seventeen my mother officially gave up her dreams, married my father, and had a child by the end of the year.