Firoozeh Dumas

"To deny someone and education is not just a crime but a sin, because you are denying that person the opportunity to realize who he or she is meant to be." This quote represents Firoozeh Dumas's view on learning and becoming the person that she is today. Through her hardships, struggles, good times and the bad times, she has matured and learned a great deal. In the autobiography Funny in Farsi by Firoozeh Dumas, the themes or clashing cultures, new environments, and learning through experience comes into play. The story begins as Firoozeh moves with her family to the United States in 1972, as a seven-year-old. From the moment her airplane lands, she starts to see differences; not only in the geography of the land and the appearance of the people, but the look of the whole place. She is used to bustling cities in Iran, crowded with enthusiastic workers, shoppers, and people socializing. In contrast, her new neighborhood in America seemed fairly unexciting; she describes it as uniformed houses, all the lawns in perfect order, as if everything was constantly being maintained to achieve the ideal look. But little did she know that this was only the beginning of differences. Entering a new school would open a whole other orbit of biculturalism. As she enters school, she sees everyone; completely different looking from her, and all of them fluent in English. Curious classmates peered around her desk, examining her from head to toe trying to figure out who she is; what type of creature she is and where she comes from. To make things even worse, Firoozeh’s mother decides to attend school with her, to learn proper English. This leads to ultimate humiliation for Firoozeh. Not only is she an immigrant student, but an immigrant student with her mother in elementary school with her. Students constantly ask her where she comes from, as if she's an alien of some sort. She slowly learns to respond by saying "You know, the country where Persian cats come from." She hopes to