The Search for Home
Dear fellow Americans and Middle Easterners,
In our current society, Iranians stand at a crossroads between many misconceptions and
false notions. We have no home as there are always people that group us with their beliefs of
what we should be. In America, we are judged for our beliefs and being Middle Eastern. We are
judged in the Middle East for being from a Shia Muslim country. Everywhere we face
something. This leads to many Iranians facing an identity crisis due to always trying to escape
some sort of label placed on them by society. The ones that face the worst trouble with their
identity and sense of self are the ones that had to leave Iran after the revolution of 1979.
I was born and raised in America after my family had traveled around the world looking
for a new place to call home. My family had to begin this journey to search for a new home after
the Iranian Revolution of 1979. They moved back and forth a few times to see if they could
possibly still live comfortably in this new unfavored Iran. However, after a few years, they knew
for good that they would not return to live there until a new government was put in place, due to
the strict religious rules imposed on the population. I lived the American life just like everyone
else, and I had much pleasure in this life that my family had brought for us. Everywhere I went I
carried with me my last name and pieces of the Persian culture that my family passed down to
me. I had a good life with both the comfort of my family’s Persian culture and the beautiful
country of America. I always wondered where the racism my family faced when moving here
went. Did it leave as society progressed? Have I just never noticed it? Growing up I always
heard stories about my grandfather’s condominium getting painted on with messages of hate or
my father having his classmates call him racial slurs. I never once thought that this stuff would
happen to me until it did happen over the years. I too faced similar things in school and had
people treat me differently for who I am. The worst part is when the things these people call you
don’t even apply to you.
I looked around me and noticed that many of the Iranians I know must be going through
the same things. So many have changed their names to get decent jobs and be treated with
respect. I have seen people go from the name Babak to Bob, Jafar to Jack, or Khosrow to Roy. It
saddens me to see people having to lose their cultures and rich history to just fit into society.
They begin to lose faith in religion due to how the world treated them and so they do not fit the
standard of what others think of them. In some bad cases, I have even seen Iranians turning
against their own culture and faiths to gain the acceptance of their peers in America.
When I reflect on what the source of this racism might be from I begin to realize that like
all racism it stems from a lack of knowledge. Most people I have talked to think Iran is a desert
or that we are Arabs. This makes it clear that most people do not truly know what they speak of
and coin terms to what they do not know. It is said by a philosopher that all hate comes from
fear, and fear comes from not knowing what something is. If only people knew the diverse
peoples, mountainous green landscapes, and warm culture Iran possesses. Surrounded by the
large Persian community of Los Angeles where I grew up I met Iranians with blue eyes and even
red hair which is rare for that part of the world. I know several Jewish and Christians too, yet we
are only labeled as Muslim. Perhaps with this knowledge and open-mindedness, peoples’ views
could brighten up a bit. But who is to blame? After all, the only image of Iran that we are shown
in America is a power-hungry cleric that is developing nuclear enrichment facilities.
Linguist Mary Louise Pratt introduces us to “Contact Zones”, a very relative concept to
this topic, in her work Arts of the Contact Zone. Contact zones are the point of meeting between
people of different cultures, groups, and backgrounds. She shows how in contact zones people do
not feel safe, nor excluded as no one else feels safe along with them. She gives an example of a
contact zone formed within a classroom setting and then goes on to say,” Along with rage,
incomprehension, and pain, there were exhilarating moments of wonder and revelation, mutual
understanding, and new wisdom—the joys of the contact zone. The sufferings and revelations
were, at different moments to be sure, experienced by every student. No one was excluded, and
no one was safe.” (Pratt 595). At a point of meeting, a crossroads between different people lies a
sense of loneliness as you are not in your comfort zone with others of your similar group.
However, this isolated feeling is shared with the third party due to them also feeling not
comfortable with the former person’s group which is new to them as well. This created a mutual
space where both people can have an unbiased interaction with each other. This road can go
either two way. In such a setting people can meet and have time to understand each other
openmindedly. Likewise, in this same setting people can develop negative/angry feelings
towards their counterparts through fear of not understanding, and perceiving this new person as a
threat.
Aside from this, to make us even more isolated, we are strangers to our own Middle
Eastern neighbors. Many clerics in Middle Eastern countries say negative things about Iran
because its faith is Shia Islam, which some Sunni clerics view as heretical or astray. People make
jokes about Iranians for “Not following religion correctly” or call us bad names associated with
faith. The result of this is a feeling of lack of comfort anywhere and a lack of inclusion with
countries around them. Despite Afghans being Persian as well, Iranians have a strange conflict
with them because the two could never truly mix without a conflict in faith.
The final and
greatest threat to our people is the lack of unity internally. This unfortunately brought many bad
experiences upon me personally and can be related to many others. Within our people lie barriers
that have been carried on from our traditional culture to America. These barriers arise from
differences between people by wealth and social status. I saw many Iranians badmouth other
Iranians for not coming from a good background and invalidate their opinions if they do not have
substantial material worth. If they did not come from the capital city of Tehran, they’d refer to
them as villagers and not associate with them. Because of this, no matter how little money some
Iranians have in America I still see them flaunt nice cars and clothes. It shows the financial
struggle people will go through to deal with these conflicts. I had instances where my friends
would ask why I associated with others because of where they came from and I frequently got
into many arguments with them over this. Due to always being surrounded by Iranians who carry
this outdated mindset I retreated to solitude and lessened my circle of those with my same
background. It became evident to me that I was being left out of the circle of my ethnic group in
America due to not conforming to the norms here.
What I experienced in my life was just a fraction of what many other Iranians in America
face. We share a sense of displacement, a feeling of loneliness, and a struggle to adapt to this
different culture. Along with our strong flame of love for our land, we hold a grudge against the
leaders in the present for exiling us with their strict laws. But it is these negative and positive
feelings that unite us aside from all of the separations we impose on each other by means of
culture. It is this very struggle that gives us a sense of brotherhood which gives us strength to
persevere, knowing that we are not alone.
Works Cited
Pratt, Mary Louise. Arts of the Contact Zone. Modern Language Association.