Americanized: Rebel without a Green Card

“But when Khomeini came to power, he founded the Islamic Republic of Iran and introduced Islamic law to the country. Suddenly there were strict dress codes for women that required them to cover up their hair, men and women (unless they were married) were mostly segregated, Western music and movies were banned, and alcohol became illegal. For some, Khomeini was a total buzzkill. Of course, the new laws thrilled the country’s religious citizens, but my mostly secular family wasn’t having it. My mom had great hair. It would have been a cardinal sin to cover up those luscious chestnut locks. That said, while the country was deprived of my mom’s shampoo-commercial-quality tresses, there were also benefits to the Islamic Revolution. For instance, the literacy rate in Iran nearly tripled (up to 97 percent, higher than the United States’), because social conservatives were comfortable with sending their daughters to school, now that their classmates would also be wearing head scarves.” 

This passage explains the political history of Iran as an Islamic Republic and the strictures of Islamic law. Saedi presents her humorous interpretation of these religious developments, such as her mother’s disdain for covering up her hair, while also revealing some of the benefits of the new regime, like improved literacy rates, especially for girls. The passage is illustrative of Saedi’s attempts to provide a full picture of Iran that goes beyond simple, Western stereotypes of Islam as uniformly oppressive to women’s rights.

“And though I studied them meticulously, I never quite understood my sister’s goddess-like qualities until we walked the halls of Lynbrook together. She moved with a confidence that I had yet to master. She didn’t need a green card to fit in. Everything about the way she carried herself said, ‘I belong.’ I wanted to bottle her poise and bathe in it daily. And when I walked alongside her, I ceased being known as Sara. High school seniors now solely referred to me as ‘Little Sami,’ and I wore the nickname like a badge of honor. I was Little Sami. To me, it was the highest of compliments.” 

This quotation exemplifies Sara’s adoration for her older sister, Samira. As children, Sara and Samira constantly fight, but this changes once Sara enters high school and sees her sister’s poise and confidence. The quotation reveals how important it is for Sara to feel like she fits in and belongs—something her sister seems to effortlessly achieve even though she does not have a green card. Samira also embodies the self-confidence Sara fails to cultivate throughout her teenage years, although she does finally ascend to her sister’s level of confidence as an adult. 

“It had been only a year since I’d discovered we were undocumented, so I didn’t quite grasp the gravity of the day our Social Security cards finally arrived in the mail. My diary entry from November 24, 1994, describes it as ‘the best day ever.’ A friend loaned me his Metallica CD, I flirted with my crush during an earthquake drill, and I got an A on a science test, I didn't have to run much in PE, and: then, when I got home, I got my social security card in the mail… Days [of our Lives] was really good.

I gave the moment about as much weight as a strong episode of my favorite daytime drama.”

Based on a diary entry, this quotation marks a significant event in Sara’s life—the day she receives her social security number, which means she can work legally in the United States. For Sara, however, the importance of the occasion is sandwiched between more prosaic thoughts, like flirting with her high school crush and watching an episode from her favorite soap opera. The passage thus reveals how Sara, despite her seemingly atypical background, is very much a typical American teenager, preoccupied with the same issues and concerns. It also belies teenaged Sara’s misunderstanding regarding the gravity of her situation; like her off-handed contemplation of the term “illegal aliens,” she fails to comprehend the true scope of her status as an undocumented immigrant as a teenager, and she only comes to recognize this as an adult. 

“The only outcome from the teasing was my seriously damaged sense of self, and if I’m going to be truthful, not even tweezers helped repair it. In the back of my mind, I lived in fear that being Middle Eastern was considered a turnoff to boys my age. No one at my high school knew much about Iran and mostly associated my culture with terrorism and magic carpets. I wasn’t one of the desirable exotic races (Asians did very well at my school—they also made up 60 percent of the student body), and I wasn’t the all-American cheerleader type, either. Even my prettier older sister never seemed to have boyfriends, when all the other white girls in her clique did. I couldn’t help but wonder if my race automatically put me at a disadvantage.” 

The damage to Sara’s self-esteem when classmates tease her for having dark hair above her nose is more far-reaching than her concern over her looks. Sara connects their teasing to ignorance and racism, as most of her classmates have little knowledge of or exposure to the Middle East except for harmful stereotypes and misrepresentations. Although Sara does not use the term “microaggression,” this is what she often experiences in high school and aptly links to larger, societal problems. Sara fears that her position as an outsider will have long-term repercussions, especially on her love life. This indicates that such microaggressions are not merely high school fanfare but impactful blows to her sense of self. 

“They had brought us to America for the sole reason of giving us a better life, and they didn’t want that life to become an impediment to our relationship. The idea of their children growing up and no longer relating to them was a terrifying prospect. They knew the only way to avoid the inevitable cultural divide was conversation and compromise, even if it took a long and heated debate about the dangers of sterling silver to get to a place of mutual understanding. No topic was off-limits in our household. As much as their parenting philosophy was ‘We trust you,’ it was also ‘You can trust us.’” 

This passage summarizes Sara’s close relationship with her parents who, compared to other Iranian-American parents, are extremely tolerant about many rites of passage for their teenagers, like partying and staying out late with friends. Sara’s parents contradict representations of Middle Eastern parents as strict and forbidding and instead aim to be as honest and open with their children as possible in order to establish mutual bonds of trust. Their parenting style helps alleviate many of the problems that immigrant children encounter when trying to relate to their parents and vice-versa. Simultaneously, however, they seem to realize that in doing so—Americanizing their children through their liberal parenting—they also risk cultivating an irreparable cultural divide between themselves and their children.

“I was so consumed by my feelings for Evan that it never crossed my mind

that smoking pot was a privilege afforded to American teenagers and not us undocumented kids. If Evan got caught getting high, he could go to juvie. If I got caught, I’d have a criminal record that could be grounds for deportation. Maybe that was why my dad was so desperate to keep us from doing drugs with our friends. If my sister or I got arrested, it could cost all of us the ability to stay in the United States.” 

As a teenager, Sara does not consider the danger she puts her family in if she gets caught smoking pot, which may lead to her deportation. She only realizes this as an adult when reflecting on her father’s offer to do drugs with him at home. From his perspective, it is the safer alternative. The passage underscores the higher stakes that undocumented immigrants face compared to American citizens and, as mentioned above, Sara’s ignorance to these higher stakes as a teenager. It is the distraction of her more American life and pursuits—namely, her crush on Evan—that compels her naivety in regard to her position as an undocumented immigrant.

“‘Go back to your country’ is one of my least favorite phrases in the English

language. It’s vile and racist and only uttered by xenophobes and bigots. And yet the words did run through my mind during the months or years that my dad’s mom, Margaret Farideh Kanani-Ghasr, would come from Iran to live with us in America.”

This quotation highlights the honesty of Sara’s writing. She is fully aware of the hurtful and racist implications of the statement, “Go back to your country,” yet admits she often thought this in reference to her paternal grandmother, Maman Farideh. While becoming Americanized allows Sara to fit in, it also vests in her less admirable American characteristics such as this. The quotation, which occurs at the beginning of the chapter, is also illustrative of Sara’s tendency to use provocative statements as hooks to pique the interest of her readers.

“During that last day in San Jose, she went on a walk, stumbled across a church service, and slipped inside. She couldn’t understand what anyone was saying or doing, but she still wanted to observe and even dropped five dollars in the donation basket. I can imagine that some churchgoers may have been unsettled by this little old lady in a head scarf hanging out among a bunch of Christians. But I’d like to think they kept an open mind, like she always did, and that no one let the words, ‘Go back to your country’ enter their thoughts.”

This quotation pays tribute to Maman Farideh as Sara recognizes many of her admirable qualities. Maman Farideh’s open-mindedness is an antidote to bigoted comments, like “Go back to your country,” and provides a narrative arc to Sara’s opening statement in the chapter when she wants her grandmother to return to Iran. Maman Farideh’s behavior in this passage is emblematic of the empathetic, compassionate approach Sara wants readers to take toward those of different cultures. 

“During his daytime naps, I’d wait for my mom to take a shower, and then I’d carefully scoop him out of his crib so I could cradle him in my arms. He was so light and precious, and since I had eight years on him, I already felt like he was my responsibility. But no one told me that as the years went on, I’d actually be in charge of raising him. I would be a teen mom and a virgin. Arguably, the world’s most depressing combination.”

This quotation describes Sara’s relationship with her younger brother, Kia. Although initially jealous of him, Sara quickly learns to love Kia. As a teenager, she ends up watching Kia most days after school while her parents work and thus refers to herself as a teen mom. The quotation reveals Sara’s nurturing tendencies towards Kia, as well as the responsibility she feels for him. Later in the book, Sara focuses on their dissimilarities, as Kia is an American citizen, but here their familial bond is much stronger than their differences. 

“I’m really fed up with people right now. I got my eyebrows done, and the lady was telling me if I ate two lemons a day, I wouldn’t get zits. It’s like telling a fat person about this new diet when you’re really skinny. When I look in the mirror, I agonize about my skin. I think about it constantly, only to hear my parents lecture me on how if I ate better food, I’d have no zits. It’s not that easy. They never had bad skin. They wouldn’t know. Screw them. If they ever read my diary, this entry will tell them how their comments are eating me up inside, probably causing more zits.” 

This passage details the anguish Sara feels about her hormonal cystic acne and the insensitivity of family, friends, and strangers who make unsolicited comments about her appearance. In the book, Sara describes their thoughtlessness as “skin shaming.” The quotation also shows how Sara is like other American teenagers who experience anxieties about their physical appearance. While Sara defines her relationship with her parents as one based on trust and openness, we also learn here that there are things she does not share with her parents, such as the pain their words about her acne cause her. In this way, too, she is the typical American teen. 

“In all honesty, I still hate my nose. There are traits I was self-conscious about in my teen years that I’ve come to embrace in adulthood (my height, my big booty, and my curly hair, for example), but my nose never managed to win me over. When a doctor told me that I had a really bad deviated septum, it seemed like a good excuse to go under the knife. But I never did, and I probably never will. There’s enough about me that doesn’t look Iranian. Almost every Persian person I meet is surprised when I whip out my broken Farsi. Even my name gets bastardized all the time (the ar in Sara rhymes with ‘car,’ not ‘care’). But my nose is undeniably Persian, and changing it would feel like rejecting the most significant part of myself.” 

While many Persian women undergo rhinoplasty—a surgical procedure viewed as a sign of wealth and prestige in Iran—Sara opts not to have a nose job because she wants to maintain a visible connection with her Persian ethnicity. Sara’s decision to retain the appearance of her nose is not a matter of preference, but of pride; while she doesn’t particularly like her nose and even has a valid reason to undergo surgery, she chooses not to change it because it is distinctly Persian. The passage illustrates Sara’s acceptance of her physical appearance, something she struggles with as a teenager. It also hints at her lack of a defined, recognizable identity—she doesn’t “look Iranian”—and the stress or discomfort that can instill. This experience of not fitting into one group or another is a common narrative for bi-racial and immigrant Americans. 

“We were a motley crew of immigrant kids with vastly different personalities (think the cast of The Breakfast Club), but with one common thread keeping us permanently entwined. None of our friends knew what it was like to be raised by Iranian immigrants. None of our friends knew what it was like to be an immigrant. No one else understood the intricacies of our family and what our parents had to overcome just so we could live in America. The struggle was real, and it bonded us forever.” 

Sara’s close relationships with her maternal kin who live in the United States serves as a balm to her teenaged self. Sara and her cousins share common experiences as Iranian immigrant children, which creates strong bonds between them. The quotation highlights these special connections and the reasons why they remain close with each other, even as adults. As mentioned above, Sara might have felt out of place with Iranians or Americans, but with her family, she finds true belonging. 

“All I could think was that my parents were right. In America, anything was possible. In America, dreams really did come true. I opened my mouth and carefully uttered, ‘I hope I can write like you one day.’” 

Here Saedi presents a positive view of America and the idea that anything is possible—an ideology that compels many to emigrate to the United States. In this case, Sara meets her Hollywood crush, Ethan Hawke, who is reading from his book at an event that Sara attends in San Francisco. Sara is awe-struck by Ethan Hawke and in her diary remembers the event as one of the best days of her life. The interaction also portends Sara’s profession as a writer.

“Today, when I grip my US passport and walk through airport security to travel overseas, knowing I’ll be allowed to return, I always remind myself that this privilege came at a high cost. When I walk into a voting booth, I tell myself that this right came amid many sacrifices. My parents thought of the divorce as trading one piece of paper for another, and I try to compartmentalize it in the same way. But then I consider that nineteen-year-old girl waiting desperately for her visa to come through in Tehran so that she could start a life with her husband in America, and I feel myself getting angry again on her behalf. It’ll never sit well that years later she had to end her happy, hard-earned marriage just to give her children a better life.” 

Sara expresses bitterness at the convoluted process of applying for permanent residency in the United States. Despite their happy marriage, her parents got a divorce, thinking it would expedite their green card applications. This turned out not to be the case, and eventually they remarried, exemplifying some of the seemingly inane rules governing citizenship in the US. The quotation highlights the sacrifices Sara’s parents made to ensure their children had a secure future in the United States, as well as the gratitude Sara feels for their sacrifices. 

“If you ever want to see an Iranian’s eyes bug out of their head, all you have to do is instantly accept their offer of treating you to dinner without an argument. It’s not that we don’t expect to pay for dinner. It’s that we expect you to put up a fight.”

This quotation summarizes the cultural concept of taarof. Although there is no exact translation in English, taarof refers to the process of declining something as a show politeness. It is a form of social consideration that Iranians highly value, and Sara provides several examples of it in the book.

“My problems may have seemed big to me in high school, but I wasn’t dealing with arranged marriages to the wrong man or a love affair that would leave me ostracized from my entire family. Maman Soury didn’t always make the most traditional decisions, but I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for her struggles and hardships and the controversial paths she traveled down. My aunts, uncles, cousins, and I are all a product of the life she lived and the life she bravely chose not to live.” 

Sara describes her admiration for her maternal grandmother, Maman Soury, who defies societal expectations in mid-20th century Iran and divorces her husband to marry his nephew. As a result of these unconventional choices, Maman Soury experiences many difficulties in her personal life, including the loss and estrangement of her children. Sara describes these struggles and recognizes that she is a product of incest while also highlighting the bravery of Maman Soury. It is both literally and figuratively Maman Soury’s choices that shaped her life and her personality. Sara most values her “sassy” personality trait, and it is one passed down from female relatives like Maman Soury. 

“October, 6, 1997

My birthday is on Friday. The death day. The day we leave. My last few days of being sixteen, and living in this house. Why is this life so twisted and broken? Even though I shouldn’t, part of me blames my parents. I know they are worse off than I am. But I know they want to get out of here. I hate every happy naïve stupid person. And I hate feeling sorry for myself. And I hate being in this room. These walls are mocking me, laughing at my tears…” 

This diary entry expresses the despair Sara feels at the thought of moving out of her childhood home on her 16th birthday. Her parents can no longer afford to pay the mortgage for their house because they need to pay Samira’s college tuition. As undocumented immigrants, they are not eligible for financial aid. The passage shows Sara’s resentment towards her parents as well as her flair for dramatic expression. While the passage drips with teenage angst, there is also an undertone of more complex understanding of the unfairness of her family’s position. The naivety of her community only exacerbates Sara’s frustrations. 

“As we waited at the crosswalk for the light to change, Rebecca gently replied, ‘At least you still have faith in your dad. I can’t even say that anymore.’ There we were, two girls from vastly different backgrounds and belief systems, born on opposite sides of the globe, and yet, in that moment, none of that mattered. We understood each other completely. I felt her pain as much as she felt mine.” 

This quotation reveals the power of teenage friendships. Sara is devastated that her high school crush, Evan Parker, refuses to take her to prom, while her friend, Rebecca, is hurt by her father’s infidelity. Although from two different backgrounds, the girls empathetically understand each other’s pain. Sara also alludes to the complexity of human existence. While it would be easy to characterize her American friends as solely privileged, she acknowledges that they, too, are facing their own unique, life-shattering battles. 

“My mom had distant crushes and a few experiences with unrequited love, but there was no way she knew exactly what I was feeling. Immigrant kids often feel like their parents will never understand what it’s like to be a teenager in the States. They’ll never fully comprehend what it’s like to bounce back and forth between two worlds and two cultures without offending either side. But it was then that I understood one of my mom’s greatest virtues: her capacity for empathy. She didn’t have to know my pain in order to feel it. Despite a cultural chasm that would exist between us no matter how long we lived in America, I’d never felt more connected to her.” 

Sara nods to the close relationship with her mother, even in light of the cultural chasm that often separates teenage immigrant children and their parents. Throughout her memoir, Saedi often explicitly outlines the challenges of being an “immigrant kid,” which ensures the reader understands these hurdles and experiences. Such is the case here, when she details the rift that often opens between immigrant parents and their children; while she clearly summarizes this chasm here, in other places throughout the book, she exemplifies it through stories. While experiencing some of these difficulties with her parents, Sara is amazed by her mother’s capacity for empathy and her understanding of Sara’s painful experiences of unrequited love. This empathy becomes a defining trait for Sara, too, and she designs her book to help readers understand the experience of immigrants across the States. 

“Years of frustration and stress were spilling over on both sides. On my parents’ end, they couldn’t understand why I was making an already challenging situation worse. On my end, I realized something I’d never quite verbalized before: this had nothing to do with me. It was their fault. Why didn’t they immediately apply for political asylum? Why didn’t my mom bite the bullet and enter into a fake marriage to get us green cards faster? Why did they trust incompetent lawyers who steered us in the wrong direction, just because those lawyers were Iranian? I should have been cursing the system, but my mom and dad were much more tangible scapegoats.” 

Although Sara has a loving relationship with her parents, this quotation reveals the resentment and frustration she feels towards them for putting her in a situation where she is an undocumented immigrant in the United States. As an adult, Sara recognizes that it is the system to blame, but at the time of this fight with her parents, all she can see are their failings. Sara uses them as a scapegoat to express her immense anger, accumulated over years, at being subjected to endless immigration bureaucracy. In this passage, we also feel the manifestation of one of Sara’s defining traits: independence. Like her grandmother before her, Sara grows frustrated at her lack of agency in her own life and therefore rebels against the ways her parents shaped it. 

“I was scared, too. I was scared a lot of the time. There are some details of my family’s immigration story that I have chosen to leave out of this book, because I’m still scared we could get in trouble for having been here illegally for so long (especially considering the unpredictable times we’re living in). For undocumented immigrants, past or present, the fear becomes a normal part of our daily lives. Even after the relief of getting a green card or becoming an American citizen, it’s easy to channel my days as an ‘illegal alien’ and feel the anxiety all over again. So I’m not being disingenuous when I say that I feel your pain.”

Sara reveals the enduring trauma of her experiences as an undocumented immigrant and her desire to reassure others who may feel scared about their residency status in the United States. In this section of the book, Sara lays out practical strategies to help undocumented immigrants avoid deportation. The quotation provides a framework of these strategies through Sara’s personal story and experiences. She also utilizes this as an opportunity to acknowledge the holes in her own narrative, holes the reader would not have realized were even there if she did not point toward them. In doing so, the reader becomes even more aware of the perils faced by undocumented immigrants—some of these perils, she notes, are so risky that she cannot even detail them. In their place, the reader fills in their own worst scenarios. 

“After my dad pointed out my poor utensil choice, the guilt got to me and I went back to using a spoon. It took a while to get reacquainted with my old habit, but while I scooped up my rice with a spoon, it dawned on me: I am a spork.” 

Sara uses the metaphor of a spork—part spoon and part fork—to explain her cultural hybridity as an Iranian-American. Typically, Iranians use spoons to eat rice. As a child Sara uses a spoon to eat rice but, as an adult, switches to a fork, following the example of her American husband. Reflecting on these changes, Sara realizes she is a mixture of Iranian and American identities and practices. She also indicates her proclivity for swaying to current influences: her husband influences her to eat with a fork, while her father’s comment pushes her to return to a spoon. In the imagery of the spork, Sara is also able to reclaim her own agency, even over something as simple as eating rice. 

“Over tea, we’d compare notes and be unsurprised by all the ways we are different. But hopefully, we’d also stumble upon the ways we are the same: the love for our family, the pride in our culture, the frustrations with our culture, and how we both agreed that cooking ghormeh sabzi from scratch takes way too damn long. We would realize that finding common ground does not require living in the same country or even the same part of the world, and that despite our vastly different upbringings, there’s so much more that connects us than separates us. And then maybe you’d be able to convince me to get my nose done.” 

Sara envisions an imaginary conversation between American Sara and an alternate version of herself who grew up in Iran. Despite their different upbringings, American Sara believes they would share many commonalities with each other. Her book thus ends on a hopeful note, suggesting that there are more similarities than differences between people, and we can come to a common understanding through shared conversation. It also encapsulates many of the values Sara projects throughout the course of her memoir—namely, that she is the product not of her circumstances in America so much as her family’s love and her own sense of self.