Funny in Farsi
Funny in Farsi A Memior of Growing Up Iranian in America by Firoozeh Dumas is all about her life growing up in California after her dad is moved there but is company form Iran. Being born in Iran she had not learned much English so when she moved to the United State she slowly learned and was the translator for her mother a lot of the time. In her younger years she moved around about every two years and eventually she settled in America after her dad retired from the oil refinery in Iran. Since she was light skinned and had dark hair she could pass for an America as long as she did not speak because of her accent, this abled her in many ways. After living in America for some time Firoozeh realizes that no one can really say her name the right way because the English language does not use the same sounds that are in the Persian language. Also by taking an America name she would no longer have to spend endless amounts of time trying to explain to people how to say her name. Since she looked like a young American girl with an American name she could pass for someone that had been born and raised there, that is until she had to open her mouth to say something. After people started to think that she was an American they started to say things that she had never known that they had been saying before, about immigrants from her country. Whilst she has changed her name some Americans that had been traveling in Iran had been taken captive and held for a period of time and while the news was going over the story people started to talk about the issue. By having the American name she heard things that the people really thought about the issues with Iran instead of the polite things they would say to stay off of the subject. Kazem, her father, got fired from his job for being Iranian during this time and found it very difficult to find another job. Eventually he stopped putting that he was Persian or Iranian all together and became Turkish, just so that he could find a job
Cited: Funny in Farsi, Copyright 2003 by Firoozeh Dumas