Why I Call Myself Iranian-American by Persis M. Karim

History has a way of inserting itself in our lives whether we want it or not. I was shaped by my parents' histories of immigration after the Second World War (each of my parents came to the United States seeking a better life after experiencing military occupation in their countries of origin--my mother in France and my father in Iran). Their arrival in the United States in the late 1940s was not particularly unusual. Many people left parts of Europe and the Middle East for the promise and possibility of North America. But their history became in part my history in this country. Their experiences as outsiders, as foreigners, and as immigrants shaped the way I viewed myself. Their different cultures, educational backgrounds, and life perspectives made me realize that as an American I had to define myself in my own terms. I belonged to no culture, and I belonged to all three.

When I was 17 years old, the Iranian Revolution unfolded from far away. It was not an easily graspable event. It was a history that was remote from me and captured only on the newspaper headlines and glimpses of the 6 o'clock news. But I knew when I saw the images of Iranians shouting and raising their fists, marching through the streets of Tehran, demanding that the U.S. stop supporting the Shah of Iran, I knew then, that all those vague notions of who I was, the culture that had partially shaped me, my father's intellectual and political engagement with the country he had left long ago but where he still had many family members, all this left me in need of a connection. I began to learn Persian and to want to read the great Persian poets. I was, in a sense, a born - again Iranian -- but with a qualitative difference. I was not Iranian, but Iranian-American. This phrase did not exist in my lexicon. And it did not exist in the American one either. People were still referring to themselves as Persians or hiding their idenity altogether.

Over the course of the early 1980s, Iranians were portrayed and represented in every possible unfavorable light: they were zealots, kidnappers, religious fanatics, warmongers, hostage-takers. No one, in the United States, it seemed, understood that Iranians had endured decades of dictatorship and had some desire and will to shape their own destiny. I too had this feeling as a young woman of 18. I wanted to connect to my heritage, but I did not want to be ruled by it. By the time I was in my late twenties, I had come to understand ambiguities and struggles that had come from being a second-generation American, and the ways that the media images and stereotypes of Iranians had silenced me and others.

I began to meet other second-generation Iranian-Americans, other "do-rageh" children. I knew then, that I was not alone, and that after twenty years (after the revolution), Americans needed to know what Iranians had experienced, what they had to say, how their voices were quietly being expressed despite the view that there were only Iranians (either in Iran or the U.S.) but not Iranian-Americans. The collection, "A World Between: Poems, Short Stories, and Essays by Iranian-Americans"-- (George Braziller, Publisher) was published in 1999 after I and the other editor worked to solicit writings by a new generation of writers and Americans. They were not famous writers (often a criticism by reviewers), but people who were beginning to shape the discourse about what it means to have lived through the history of the revolution (whether here or in Iran) and the ways it has influenced us. I am very proud of having participated in the editing of this collection. It has been an important part of giving a public identity to Iranians in the U.S. and to begin dispelling those myths and stereotypes about who we are in the American imaginary. It has served as a vehicle for discussion and a prideful emblem of our community and the diversity within that community. A World Between has given me the opportunity to connect with a whole generation of people that heretofore found itself marginalized both by American society and culture and even from Iranian culture. These are the people who live and write from the "world between" and who find that a liberating space to speak from. The stories and poems in the book begin to articulate the ways that Iranian culture is evolving and by necessity hybridizing itself alongside American culture. More than necessity than by choice. It is my continuing hope the book conveys a message that positive and inclusive and, now morethan ever, I hope that it helps Americans understand the humanity of all Iranian people and all those who come from cultures and places that are so vilified in the U.S. media.

In the wake of September 11th, I, like so many other people of Middle Eastern parentage, worry for our future. I worry about discrimination and xenophobia, and hateful acts of bigotry that are absent in the discussion of U.S. policies in the Middle Eastern region. It took so much time for Iranians to have a space to articulate themselves in this country. I only hope that we can remind ourselves and all Americans of the long-suffering experiences of exile, displacement, and of rebuilding after a cataclysmic event that Iranians have had to engage in this country. I hope too, that Iranian-Americans of all generations will speak out and courageously defend the hyphenated aspect of their identities. We have much to contribute and this book is just the beginning.