On a related note, a friend recently let me borrow Firoozeh Dumas' Funny in Farsi and Laughing Without an Accent, both memoirs about growing up Iranian in America. The books are extremely funny and convey the immigrant experience in a way that firmly makes you believe that the only difference between an Iranian and Russian immigrant is a passion for grape leaves. Also, the paperback version of Funny in Farsi has an interview with Khaled Hosseini, who wrote The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, which are amazing. Please read them.
Also, both authors live in the Bay Area, so way to represent.
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2 comments:
actually, saying "she speaks farsi" makes you sound like you know what you're talking about--like saying "hindi" or "bengali" instead of "indian." saying "she speaks persian" makes you sound like you don't. from my experience at least.
and as for the immigrant experience--it is so incredibly universal that it is difficult to believe sometimes. i don't remember if i told you about this, but i saw in the heights (about puerto rican and dominican immigrants in washington heights) and saw basically all of the russian jewish immigrants we know onstage. same thing from reading about indian or chinese or south american immigrants. it's amazing.
There is a good reason why saying "she speaks persian" makes you sound like you don't know what you are talking about
"she speaks Persian" = "she speaks Irish", or "she speaks Israeli".
Despite the "valiant" efforts by their leaders to make it not so, Iran is a rainbow of peoples and tribes, some having their own languages; and Arabic is, especially these days, almost just as prominent as Farsi there.
India is even more so.
100 years ago, immigrants wanted to get quickly absorbed into the American society; so they wanted to learn to speak English, celebrate the 4th of July, etc. Unfortunately, "celebrating the diversity" has become what it was never inteded to be: loss of communication between different ethnic groups: they were all clinging to their language and not to their culture. Result is we in the US all speak about the same things in different languages, on rare occasions understanding each other.
I hope I don't sound too grim :-)
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