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‘Funny in Farsi’ by Firoozeh Dumas was a really good book to read considering how much I was able to relate to my own life. The story of Dumas’ move to the United States and the tribulations she faced and how she managed to overcome them was heartwarming and inspiring to read about. Throughout the book, there were different examples of various things that Dumas had to go through that relate to how she became the woman she is today.
The first concept I will be identifying is individualism. Individualism refers to a society where people who live in individualist cultures tend to believe that independence, competition, and personal achievement are important. Individualism is shown in the example of Dumas’ father trying to without success teach her how to swim. His method of teaching did not match Dumas’ preferred way of learning. Lesson after lesson, she still was struggling to learn to swim. As if she wanted to break away from her family and become her own person, she decided to try to swim, only on her own. She went against her father’s approach of doing things as a family and learning together; she was determined to do it by herself. Dumas here was becoming more intertwined with American culture, as Americans rank amongst the highest-earning and tend to be more self-attentive rather than look at the community as a whole. Iran is somewhat related to Middle Eastern culture; in Iran, as in Egypt, families always have strong bonds and are very close-knit. This doesn’t surprise me, since I’m a son of immigrants, there came a time when I wanted to break off from my family and do my own thing.
The second concept I identified is ethnocentrism. Ethnocentrism is evaluating and judging another culture based on how it compares to one’s cultural norms, and more often than not, believing your culture is superior. Dumas had to deal with ethnocentrism, even at a young age. She talks about an incident that involved a hostage while the Iranian Revolution was going on that affected her life as she was living in Newport Beach. People would dismiss Dumas when they found out she was Iranian, and her mother decided as a measure to protect her daughter, would say she originates from Turkey. Her father was not considered for employment because of his ethnicity. One company rescinded the job offer they had given to him. After seeing his passport, they said: “Sorry…We thought you were an Arab.” After the revolution had ended, the abuse ended, and they didn’t have to go through such scrutiny. Dumas stated that through everything, her parents never complained.
The third concept I’ve identified is the social aspect of the developmental niche. The social part relates to the physical and social settings of Dumas’ everyday life. She described the significance that not only her immediate family had on her, but her extended family as well. In the chapter, ‘It’s All Relative’, she points out that her native language of Iran, Persian, has various ways to say the same word. Unlike English where there’s only one word for cousin, there are 8 different words in Iranian. The names of the aunt relate to if it is her father’s sister or her mother’s. This is an example of how much Iranian culture places an emphasis on family.
The fourth concept I’ve identified is assimilation. Assimilation describes the process by which a minority individual or group gives up its own identity by taking on the characteristics of the dominant culture. The example that stuck out for me the most was when they were all at the dinner table for Thanksgiving. Dumas recollected her father being thankful for living in a country where he can vote and she can pursue her dreams as aspirations. She states she is still proud to be Iranian, but she is thankful as well for the life she lives in America. I’m certain in a place like Iran, where speaking out today will get you arrested, they were immediately granted rights that they wouldn’t have if they still lived in Iran. The United States is a symbol of freedom worldwide, so people from repressive cultures actively embrace the freedoms immediately. As a woman, Dumas has more rights than she would have in Iran. Kazem has also dropped the norms of his native Iran, which was to expect your daughter to marry someone and never work a day in their lives. As a child, Kazem emphasized the importance of education as that was the ticket to success.
My fifth and final concept is gender roles. Gender roles refer to the idea of how men and women should look and behave. What came to mind is when Dumas recollects when she went to Switzerland when she was 8 to visit her aunt Parvine, who is an Iranian woman practicing medicine. She stated: “Aunt Parvine has always been considered something of a deity in our family because she managed, despite being an Iranian woman of her generation, to become a doctor and to set up a successful practice in Geneva. The woman overcame so many hurdles to reach her dream that she deserves to have her likeness carved in marble”. This demonstrates how Aunt Parvine the gender role that was assigned to her having been a woman from Iran, which is to have children, never work in your life and get married. Dumas stated how much of an inspiration her aunt was, as she was an example of what you can become once you’ve been put in an environment to flourish.
‘Funny in Farsi’ is a book about an Iranian family’s story of immigrating to America, however, I can tell it’s no different than most people coming to the United States from a foreign land. This is an important book for it accurately portrayed the lives of immigrants living in the United States and how difficult it was for them.
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