Americanized by Sara Saedi

Author:Sara Saedi
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2018-02-06T05:00:00+00:00

On Sunday, Iran and US played against each other in the World Cup. Iran played awesome and won 2–1. It was so cool. My whole family was so happy. We all went to an Iranian café with flags and loud music. Later that day, we all went to Los Gatos and danced and sang. I’ve never felt so proud or so Iranian for that matter. There was so much comfort there. It made me wish I had more Iranian friends.

—Diary entry: July 1, 1998

“Are you having a party, and if you are, why am I not invited?” Izzy asked me over the phone.

“I’m not having a party,” I responded.

“Liar. It sounds like you have fifty people over.”

“Oh, it’s just two of my aunts,” I replied. “They stopped by to see my mom.”

“Why is it so loud? Are they fighting or something?”

“No. We’re Persian. It’s just the way we talk.”

Whenever my friends called our house, they could barely make out my voice on the other end of the receiver and always assumed an impromptu gathering of a dozen or so relatives caused the background noise. What they eventually learned was that “quiet Iranian” is an oxymoron. I’ve never met one. We don’t whisper or use inside voices. What’s the point of saying anything if no one can hear you? Our opinions must be expressed at top volume in order for people to listen. You know when all the cohosts on a talk show speak at the same time and you don’t understand what anyone is actually saying? The industry term for this is “cross talk.” Well, that’s what it was like to be around my mom’s side of the family.

I couldn’t tell you what it was like to be around my dad’s side of the family. With the exception of Mamani, the Saedi contingent lived in Iran for the entirety of my teen years, so I only knew them through stories, letters and photographs we’d receive in the mail, and telephone conversations shouted at the top of our lungs to hear each other’s voices through the shoddy long-distance connection. I never expressed it to my parents, but I dreaded the calls to Iran. I could always tell when my mom and dad were on an overseas call from the way they had to yell names into the receiver repeatedly until they heard someone else’s voice on the other end of the line:

“FAFAR. FAFAR. FAFAR.” My dad would bellow his younger sister’s name over and over again.

“Ugh,” I would vent to my sister. “They’re calling Iran. Again.”

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to talk to my relatives; it was that I didn’t know what to say. When my parents handed me the phone, I would stretch the cord (yes, phones had cords) as far as it would go for privacy. My Farsi wasn’t what it used to be, and I was ashamed of my now-thick American accent. I couldn’t hide the fact that I was no longer like them.

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