Has your Iranian-American upbringing ever put you in a unique situation that made you aware of your dual identity?

Second place:

Once Upon a Time
by Roshan Alemi

Once upon a time there was a girl. Not just any girl, an Iranian-American eight-year-old girl who was about to have her first sleepover. Now, like any other normal eight-year-old girl about to have her first sleepover she was nervous. Very, very, nervous. She didn't want her friends to come and be disappointed. She wanted to make sure they had the best sleepover possible. She had spent hours before cleaning the house, ridding it of anything embarrassing that she didn't want her friends to see. In fact, by the time she'd finished, her bedroom had never been cleaner. She had just told her mother that she thought it would be best if they had pizza for dinner instead of khoresht when the doorbell rang. Running to the door the girl greeted her newly arrived friend, Kaytee, with a warm smile. Kaytee only had time to put her sleeping bag in the basement when the two other friends, Elizabeth and Anne, arrived. The girls were friends from school. Their friendship had started the first day of school when their teacher had put them all at the same table with the loudest most obnoxious boy in the class. They had united in order to pacify the boy, and had grown close.

 

Seating themselves in the kitchen, the girls talked for the first hour happily unaware of the time going by. However, slowly the conversation dwindled away and the girls were at a loss as to what to do next. Soon, Elizabeth suggested that they go outside and play baseball while it was still light out. They were almost out the door when the girl realized that she didn't own any baseball equipment! When she relayed this information to her friends they were befuddled. Baseball is the great American pastime! How could she not own any equipment? What does she do for fun? The girl shrugged and searched for an answer when, to her horror, her father answered for her. Pulling out his backgammon set, he explained that their family loved to play backgammon for fun. He was about to explain the game to her friends when the girl, mortified, dragged her friends out of the room.

 

A few movies and a box of pizza later the girls were exhausted and ready to go to bed. Kaytee, being one pillow short, politely asked the girl if she could borrow a pillow from her. The girl happily agreed to find Kaytee an extra pillow, and proceeded to shout “BABA!” to her father upstairs and ask for assistance. After grabbing an extra pillow for Kaytee, the girl head back to the bedroom. But just before the door, the girl paused. From there, she could just barely hear her friends talking. Talking about her, to be specific. The girl pressed her ear toward the door and heard Elizabeth saying: “Did she just call her dad Bobby?” An irrational fear gripped the girl's heart. Oh no! What if her friends no longer liked her because she called her dad Baba? At this point the girl heard Anne say, “No way! That's so weird!” The girl practically died on the spot as she heard her friends giggle softly in agreement. How could something as small as calling her dad Baba make her lose such good friends? Baba was simply another way of saying Dad. It couldn't be any weirder than Papa, could it? And then it struck her. Calling her dad Baba wasn't bad at all! Her friends just didn't understand it yet!

 

With a newfound confidence the girl strode into the room. Tossing a giggling Kaytee her pillow she began to explain that no, she didn't call her dad Bobby—she called him Baba. She explained that Baba was just the way they said Dad in Iran. To the girl's surprise her friends found this interesting! Giggling together the friends decided that Anne, Kaytee and Elizabeth would call the girl's dad “Mr. Baba Sir” from now on. Together, in between the giggles of your typical 8 year olds, the girl explained more and more about her culture. She told everything from Noruz to backgammon and found that although her friends might find some things weird or different at first, with enough explanation they would begin to see it from her and the rest of her family's point of view. Until finally with dreams of Charshambeh Sooree in their heads the girls drifted off to sleep.

 

The next morning all four girls said good morning to “Mr. Baba Sir.” The girl's father smiled and asked what they would like to eat for breakfast. The girl contemplated simply saying waffles, but then she decided to say noon-o-paneer-o-asaal instead. Her friends, tentative at first, eventually loved the taste.

 

Over the years, the girls remained friends and continued to help each other out. So, when their history teacher insisted on saying Iran like it was a sentence, they helped correct her. And when the other kids thought it was weird that the girl would bring rice and stew to school instead of the usual peanut butter and jelly sandwich, she was able to easily explain and share her food. All of this was because the girl had learned something valuable: people might think something is weird and disturbing, but that may be because they haven't ever seen it before. If you just take the time to teach them, they will begin to understand and maybe even become interested. So, from then on the girl always took the time to explain when someone found something Iranian-American strange. I would know, because I'm that girl. And so far, I've lived happily ever after.

 

Roshan Alemi is a rising junior at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Virginia. She dances and plays soccer and softball, and loves to talk to her friends online in her free time.