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

First place:

 

Secret Paintings
by Sara Ghadiri

The Language Barrier is much more than just a barrier. It is a locked door, a brick wall. Communication is so vitally important to human success that without it, we are lost. However, studying a language doesn't necessarily teach us to communicate. Language in itself is an experience, and a lifelong one at that. I have learned to speak German, Spanish, English, and Farsi, but I have only truly experienced the latter two.

Some may go through life never actually experiencing a language, not even their native tongue. My experience with English is mostly unremarkable. I simply stumbled upon it in my course of living. Eventually, I learned that one can paint with words, produce remarkable works of art in piercing detail. With encouragement from my mother, an English as a Second Language teacher, I then began to learn to paint myself, an attempt at a self-portrait of sorts. I wrote and spoke and uncovered the language-magic in a dictionary. I live in English. My thoughts are in English. My world is in English. But my actions and feelings are not in English; they are in Farsi.

 

My experience with Farsi was much more than a self-portrait. It was, and still is, an attempt to paint blindfolded. I spent hour after agonizing Saturday hour listening to a teacher drone on about the conjugation of this verb and how it is that one language has four Zs, three Ss, and random lines and squiggles that are supposed to be vowels, but no one actually writes. Not especially interesting to a ten-year-old who would rather be sleeping. I rarely did my homework, and once my dad found out, I was literally forced to do it while we drove downtown to Farsi School. Needless to say, my favorite part was the fifteen minute break we were allotted in the middle.

I was then informed, the summer between fifth and sixth grade that we would actually be going to Iran. Finally all those mind-numbing hours of Farsi classes would pay off. Right.

We carted nine suitcases, all of which I could easily fit into, to the airport and departed. Thirteen hours on a British Boeing later, we walked towards the glass barrier out into the lobby of the airport. I could see tides of people pressed against the glass, straining to see over the heads of others. All of a sudden, some of the peoples' eyes lit up and they began move towards the door. At the very second I crossed the invisible line into the lobby, I was mobbed by strangers thrusting flowers at me, saying my name, and all simultaneously trying to hug me. I clung to my mom, fearing I would be swept away by the undertow.

I followed my father to an old Paykan, a car that I would become very familiar within the coming month. White clones of that car peppered every street and alley in Tehran. We drove through the ever-present, eye-stinging smog for what seemed like hours. I looked out the window every now and then only to see apartment buildings that looked as if they had cried mascara tears and still had the black trickles on theirfaces. Jetlagged and scared, I wanted to go to sleep and wake up back in my bed. How could I have been excited for this? What made me want to leave America, safe and normal, for this loud, dirty, strange place? These strangers would be with me every waking moment of every day.

 

I would be jetlagged for a long time.

Upon our arrival, I tried to converse with my cousins, but usually all I got was a confused look and a shout for Daei Majid, their name for my father, who could translate for them. After a few extremely frustrating days, I started to listen to the Farsi that was being spoken around me. I began to pick out words, phrases, anything that would help me understand. And gradually I did. I learned by absorption, soaking up the nouns and verbs like the laundry on the line soaked up the sun. Unfortunately for me, there were still a lot of things I could not say. I could tell them that I was bored, which was incidentally one of the first things I learned, but I could not tell them what I wanted to do instead. I could initiate a conversation, but lacked the means to keep it going. I wanted to talk about the things that interested me, like music, but I did not pick up the specialized vocabulary in the everyday conversations around me. I did not learn much more besides grammar from Farsi School, although I continued to go for four more years. I learned by ear, during our annual visits to Iran, which is part of the reason my reading and writing skills are mired at the level of a third or fourth grader, yet I can speak with pretty good fluency.

 

I did learn the customs, though. The culture of Iran is totally different from that of America. Generally, the hardest part for Americans to understand is the concept of taarof. There is no easy way to explain it other than as the embodiment of the intense hospitality and giving nature of the Persians. If someone comments on a possession, the owner is to offer to give it to them. The offer, in turn, is expected to be politely refused. This custom, “ghabelli nadareh,” is exercised even at stores or at the bazaar. Shopkeepers will tell customers that there is no need for them to pay for their purchases, but they must insist on paying for them anyway. Taarof also contains another factor: kindness and friendliness to all guests. Everyone that I met there was nothing but kind to me, be they shopkeepers, family or friends. I was also amazed at how everyone there works together. Dishes are done cooperatively, and men as well as women do their part. My cousins helped me with everything from buying shoes to buying bread.

The hospitality and atmosphere we experienced in Iran was intensely different what we were familiar with in America. My aunts, uncles, and cousins expressed their delight in our presence almost every waking moment of every day. We were systematically invited to every relative's house, and as we neared our trip's end, we were sometimes invited one place for lunch, one place for tea, and yet another for dinner. At every house we visited, we were met with silver platters. Each dome of rice was adorned with beautifully patterned designs, each grain doused with sunshine-colored saffron. Chicken was nestled in pools of pomegranate with dried Persian plums bobbing gently alongside. In wide tureens swam deeply colored stews accompanied by gold-plated serving spoons. The warm aroma of freshly baked noon-e barbari, my favorite bread, wafted in from the kitchen. The best part, however, was not the food. It was being surrounded by people who cherish every moment with you because they know the moments will not last.

With our relatives, we traveled all over Iran, visiting the palace of Darius the Great near Shiraz, the famous mosques and shrines of Mashhad, the ancient bridges of Esfahan, and the misty mountains of Kelar Dasht. I have walked in the footsteps of emperors, Imams, and most importantly, my family.

 

In my trips abroad, I have seen, and indeed experienced, so much. What I saw as a barrier was only a gate. My self-portrait will always be a work in progress, but Farsi has given me a new palette. My paint is not only my language, but the dust that cakes the soles of my shoes, the rocks and trees and cars and buildings of Tehran. Granted, I often paint myself in English, but I cannot live English. Farsi is my weekend language, my secret language, my family's language. It is the way I paint my life.

 

Beh zaban-e madaram harf mizanam, vali bi zaban-e pedaram nemitoonam zendegee konam.
I live in my mother's tongue, but I cannot live without my father's.

Sara Ghadiri is a rising senior at Adlai E. Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, IL. She has been avidly involved in literary contests throughout the Chicago area, is the Senior Editor of her school's literary magazine, and is heavily involved with music as a double bassist in her school's orchestra and Jazz Band.