11 Things You Can Relate To If You Grew Up Iranian-American

Updated: 8 July 2019

I started this post months ago but never finished it since it’s not typically the sort of thing I write about. As I scanned through my list of topics, I realized I wasn’t inspired by any of them. But something about this one stood out, so I decided to dust it off and give it an ending. I figured the things on this list (and so many more) are things that perhaps many of you who grew up Iranian in the US could relate to. Of course, despite what the title suggests, this post is neither exclusive to the “Iranian” part nor the “American” part because I’m sure we’ve all had similar experiences. I think that’s why some of my closest friends have always been hyphenated. Other than Iranian-American, they are/were Indian-American, Pakistani-American, Greek-American, Serbian-American, etc. So here are 11 things you can relate to if you grew up Iranian-American. Laugh and take comfort in the fact that you aren’t alone.

Your American friends each have a first Persian word they learned

Chances are it’s a bad word, but in my case, my high school friends learned jân first. When they’d call my house, my mom would call out, “Pontia jân!” I’d pick up the phone and hear, “Pontia jân!? What’s jân?” For my freshman roommate in college, it was hichi (nothing) because apparently, that was one of the first words out of my mouth when my parents called. “What are you doing?” Hichi. And recently, I realized that for my 6-year-old niece’s friend, it’s moosh. We’re in the habit of calling her that, so we let it slip in front of her friend. “What did you aunts call you?” the friend asked. “It’s like ‘mouse’ or something…,” she said, quickly brushing over it. (Moosh or moosh bokhoratet [may a mouse eat you] are terms of endearment in Persian.)

You took Persian leftovers as your school lunch

There are so many reasons why the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding resonated with Iranian-Americans (and probably others, too). There was the dad claiming everything originated in Greece and that the kids should be proud to be Greek (Iran and Iranian, in the case of our dads), going to Greek school (Persian school), and the grandmother staying with the family (we’ve all experienced that at some point), just to name a few. But there was one scene in particular that hurtled us back smack in the face of our past demons: the school cafeteria. No, we didn’t take moussaka for lunch. We took something far stranger and far smellier- ghormeh sabzi. Oh sure, smelling it in the street in Tehran brings back amazing memories. But being forced to lift the Tupperware lid to reveal the potent smell (which would then proceed to saturate the entire room) in a classroom in Alabama brings back memories of a different kind. After my mom saw this movie, she was mortified. “I honestly thought I was packing the best lunch for you guys!” By then we were adults and laughed about it. “Mom, it’s no big deal… and, actually, can you bring some more ghormeh sabzi next time you visit?”

You had Persian class on the weekends

Growing up Iranian-American, many of us experienced Persian class on the weekends. Unlike My Big Fat Greek Wedding, we didn’t talk about Maria, Nick, and their goats. We had bâbâ âb dâd, bâbâ nân dâd (Dad gave water, dad gave bread). We learned about the fictional character Kokab Khanum and her children, Akram and Amin. We memorized poems about pomegranates and the Aesop fable about the fox and the crow. If you had a Persian school to go to, you weren’t alone. But learning it around the kitchen table was a little harder to explain to your friends who didn’t understand why you couldn’t go for a bike ride at that very moment. Not that I regret a second of it.

In school there was a long pause before your name

Everything would start out smoothly. “Laura, Jenny, Scott, Richard,” and then…, “Huh, I’m not sure how to pronounce this… is it… Ponsha? Portia? Pon-tee-ah?” I’d spend 5 minutes correcting the pronunciation of my first name before moving on to the last name. Which would only prompt more questions and keep the focus on me even longer: The “i” is silent. Yes, it’s foreign. Persian, actually. Oh, that’s Iran. In the Middle East. Well, I was born here. My parents are from there, yes. I think it was the depleting nature of these conversations that made me lose all will to correct my 7th-grade science teacher who called me Portia for a full school year. And that’s why now when I go to Starbucks, I’m Gina- which they still manage to butcher. Can you imagine if I gave my real name? The horror…

Some American names make you giggle

You know the ones I’m talking about. Us kids would laugh. But for our parents, it was hard and embarrassing to say them. The worst for my mom was our principal’s name. “Oh, hello, Mrs……uh….. Koon,” she’d finally force herself to say. (Koon means “butt.”) But at her workplace, she’d altogether ask one of the other nurses to call a patient. And they knew why. “Oh, this must be one of those names that’s bad in Persian.” 

Your friends developed a palate for Persian delicacies

My neighbor Laura craved kashk (a dried yogurt product) which is pretty hardcore because kashk is not every foreigner’s cup of tea. I used to sneak pieces of “the white stuff”, as she called it, and then my mom would get mad at me. “Pontia! Stop taking the kashk! I have to lug it all the way from Iran and you’re giving it to Laura!?” 

And then there was my friend Robert who always used to ask if we had any tadig (the crispy burnt rice at the bottom of the pot) in the house. We were working late on a project one night when my mom appeared at the door like an angel bearing a plate of crispy, golden potato tadig. Now I’m not saying the tadig performed any miracles, but we did catch a second wind after eating it.

Summer vacation meant going to Iran

All I needed to know was how many days I had to wait after the last day of school until we left. I couldn’t wait to sleep outside on my aunt’s bâlâ poshte bum (roof), play with my cousins and other neighborhood kids, eat lavish lunches with no fewer than 10 people every day. I’ve said it many times, but I’ll say it again- my best childhood memories are from those summers.

You couldn’t get on board with country music…(aka You sometimes felt left out with your American friends)

I’ll never forget the night of Kari’s birthday party. Everything was perfectly fine until that song came on- Garth Brooks’ Friends in Low Places. I watched like an alien as everyone sang at the top of their lungs and swayed in unison. The day after the party, I tuned my FM radio to the country music station and vowed to listen only to country music for the rest of eternity so that what happened the night before would never happen again. At the next birthday party, I would be able to sing along with the best of them. Bring on the country music! But I didn’t last a day. I couldn’t stand it. I had to accept that country music was not for me, and I’d have to settle for singing along to the pop songs that I knew.

There were many other things that made me feel very different from my classmates and friends. The country music thing is just my Alabama upbringing and one example. Feel free to substitute with your own music genre/experiences of feeling left out.

…Instead you could karaoke to Googoosh

There was no Garth Brooks in my house, but there was Googoosh. And Mahasti. And Hayedeh. Shahram Shabpareh and Moein. And on Saturday mornings, I’d wake up to Googoosh belting out, “khodâ yâ, khodâ yâââ, kaviram, kaviiiiiraaam…”. The following week, it was Vigen singing, mano sheydâ mikoni, chera nemiraghsi? The sound of the crow cawing at the beginning of Shohre Solati’s Kalâghe Dom Siâh makes me sigh, yâdesh bekheyr (ah, the good ol’ days). 

On long-distance phone calls, yelling into the receiver, and being handed the phone

Let me backtrack. So Saturday mornings, it was either Googoosh’s voice that woke me up or my parents’ voice yelling into the phone on a long-distance call. “ALO? SEDÂYE MANO MISHNAVI? ALO? ALO?” (Hello? Can you hear me?) What ensued was a quick 5-minute conversation (tâ ghat nashodeh [before it cuts off]) at 120 decibels before the phone was shoved in your face to talk. And of course, it was always the obscure relative that you barely knew on the other end who never introduced themselves. It was just “Shenâkhti mano?”  (Do you know who I am?) You didn’t want to be rude, so you’d lie. “Oh baleh, baleh, yes, of course.”

Suffice it to say that nothing has changed. Iranian parents still yell into the phone on a What’s App call and hand the phone for you to talk to mysterious family members who don’t introduce themselves. (It happened just yesterday.)

You were shocked when your American friends didn’t taarof with you

I’m not going to lie- taarof over who’s going to pay can really be annoying sometimes. Can we each just pay for ourselves and be done with it? But alas, it’s Iranian culture. So my Iranians friends and I would verbally duke it out at the ticket booth at the movies. Eventually, one would come out victorious. And so I couldn’t help but also taarof with my American friends. But every last time, I was stunned at how easily they would accept. Not that I could blame them. It’s not their culture. But couldn’t they have at least declined or offered just once? I think this tug-of-war of being annoyed by taarof but also expecting it is something we all struggle with. 

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