 Sometimes
I wonder sometimes what is it about
us that still after many years of living outside of Iran connects
us together
By Darya Sarkar
October 8, 2003
The Iranian
How does it feel like to have a home and yet search
for a place to fit in? This question is perhaps relevant to those
of us living
outside of Iran. Living here, we have friends and families from
different backgrounds. At times we run into Persians who
have just come from Iran and have already forgotten the language,
and yet manage to meet people who grew up here all their life
and still give you a "what's up" in Persian
with their little slangish accent.
I wonder sometimes if
we all belong to the same country or not, and what is it about
us that still after many years of living outside of Iran connects
us together when we hear the word "Persian", or
when we hear people speaking Farsi. We tend to instinctively
turn around and look, sometimes with a little attitude. We
judge each other. Let's not deny that judgment exists
in our culture. We may all look the same, but we are still different.
But what makes us different from those who grew up in Iran and
never left Iran? Does the fact that we live in Europe or America
make us any better or them any less civilized than us?
Sometimes
I do wonder how different I would have been if my parents never
brought me to America. Maybe I would have turned out to
be an Islamic girl waiting until someone came to my khaastegaari,
married a Persian man and had kids. Or, maybe I would have turned
into a wild, rebellious girl, having boyfriends, and going against
the rules and my culture's expectations, and being influenced
by the American dream. I don't know. I guess I would
never know what I would have been like if I would have never
left Iran. But one thing that I know is that I would have been
a different person. Maybe a complete contradict of who I
am now.
I am not an American girl nor Iranian.
I am just me. For years I struggled to figure my identity and
belong to
a certain
group. I am just me, with a mix of both cultures and a mix of
every place I have traveled to and every person I have met. I
could be Indian, Korean, Russian, Spanish, and many more. I
have learned from my best friends who have invited me into their
home and culture. But I still feel lost sometimes not being able
to be just one thing. When with Persians, they think I am American
and insist on the fact that I don't look THAT Persian,
and Americans on the other hand think that I am not white enough.
Sometimes
I do wish to go back to Iran, marry a good Muslim and
be a good wife, just as I am expected in my Persian
culture, but I am still scared. I am scared of going back home
and not being able to fit in. As a child coming to America,
it takes years to fit in and become the same color as the rest
of the crowd. You slowly lose your Persian accent, assimilate
into the new culture and soon no one looks at you as a foreigner,
and they categorize you as "one of the White people".
Sometimes
I do want to leave the American life for good and go back to
the old me. To my old school when every day I had
to wear my manteau and roosari, I want to go back to first
grade, the times that for teacher's day my dad would take me
to the flower shop at Agha Ali's store right at the corner
two bocks away from our house to buy flowers for my teachers.
What
about every Norouz when we would sit by the haftseen, to start
our family gatherings? Or my cousins whom I grew up with, or
my old friends who have gotten married now? What about going
home and finding the chador my grandma made for me for my first
trip to Mashhad.
Sometimes I want them all back. I want
to leave all my tube tops, tank tops, and short skirts behind
just to be able to wear that chador once again. Sometimes
I miss the smell of Sonbol and Yas in the backyard of our old
house. Sometimes I do feel lost but I get comforted to know
that I have a home that is always mine. I feel guilty sometimes
for
the girls in Iran. For all the freedom that I have and they
don't, for the fact that I can do things and be ok. In fact I
am not
judged here and what I do is ok in my American culture.
I still
read the news and buy books about Iran. It's the only way left
for me to stay connected to a part of my past that
I can't have anymore. Although fitted in this country
and culture, I look at the pictures of people in Iran and know
they are my people. Their pain does make me cry and their
suffering still affects me personally and I just don't
think I can ever let go of that.
Sometimes we do try to black
out the past and create a new world for ourselves but sometimes
every now and then something little can remind us of the memory
of home. This feeling can only exist in our hearts. So it
does not really matter how I look or dress or how much of an
American girl I am through other people's eyes. There
is only a part of me in my heart that assures me of who I am
and that is the part that people often can't see.
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Sometimes