...Firoozeh Dumas said, “We remember the kindness more than ever, knowing that our relatives who immigrated to this country after the Iranian Revolution did not encounter the same America.” in her book Funny in Farsi. This shows how America changed and how the relationships between natural born citizens and immigrants had also changed over the years. After the revolution, some of Dumas's relatives visited America and they did not believe Americans were very kind. When Dumas and her family visited California, they were treated with kindness and generosity from most people. The Americans Dumas and her family met were continually asking questions about their homeland. After being in America for a while her family soon realized that America's image...
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...Funny in Farsi Synthesis Theoretical neuroscientist Jeff Hawkins once said: "In grade school, I was taught that the United States is a melting pot. People from all over the world come here for freedom and to pursue a better life. They arrive with next to nothing, work incredibly hard, learn a new language and new customs, and in a generation, they become an integral part of our amazing nation." Firoozeh Dumas' memoir, Funny in Farsi, Pat Mora's poem "Legal Alien,” Anand Giridharadas Ted Talk “A tale of two Americas. And the mini-mart where they collided” and Richard Crowson’s political cartoon, “Great American Melting Pot,” all explain the hardships that lie within becoming a full-fledged American citizen. Gaining your legal documented citizenship...
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...Funny in Farsi American Culture Response In the passage from Funny in Farsi, Firoozeh Dumas praises the benevolent nature of Americans towards immigrants. The Whittier Academy administration displayed compassion towards Dumas and her mother, despite their lack of knowledge surrounding American culture and the English language. The administration understandingly accommodates Dumas, and her mother’s needs as they, “had decided that it would be a good idea for [Dumas’s] mother to attend school with [Dumas] for a few weeks.” Through these actions, the school is presenting Dumas’s mother with a chance to learn about American culture, and the English Language. However, Dumas’s mother also acts as a safety net for Dumas. Considering Dumas...
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...Authors Firoozeh Dumas and Mawi Asgedom tell the stories of their respective journeys as immigrant to America. Firoozeh uses description to describe her early years in America in Funny in Farsi while Asgedom uses personal reflection to explain what being an immigrant really meant in of Beetles and Angels. While both authors discuss valuable experiences, they use different strategies to convey their perspectives. In Funny in Farsi, Dumas focuses on her early life using description to show exactly what people asked and told about Dumas. Specifically, she tells about the misconceptions and questions Americans asked about her and Iran. Dumas directly states her perspective when she tells how the Americans asked their questions. To support this point, Dumas tells her readers that “Americans were kind and unafraid to ask questions, and willing to listen.” (149) The second strategy Dumas uses is an anecdote. Dumas says “I never told them the truth. I figured that someday, somebody would.” (152) Dumas is telling us about how older kids who wants to know how to swear in her language, but she tricked them into saying “man kharam”...
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...Christopher Cox Patricia Huhn English 121 20 February 2012 Education and Language Education and its effects on the individual is the primary focus of the essays by Richard Rodriguez, Leslie Silko, Firoozeh Dumas, and Gloria Anzaldua. Rodriquez’s “Achievement of Desire” illustrates how education can take the place of one’s cultural tradition in pursuit of knowledge. The loss of language is the focus of Silko’s speech, “Language and Literature from a Pueblo Indian Perspective”. “The F Word” by Firoozeh Dumas shows how profound words in one language can be funny in another, as well as hurtful. In “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” by Gloria Anzaldua, she talks about how the education system tried to remove her culture by taking away her language. The two authors take opposite views on education and how it directly affected their lives. While embracing education by becoming a scholarship boy, Rodriquez shows how his desire for knowledge overcame his families’ desire for cultural tradition. Anzaldua expresses her feelings about how education continually tried to forcefully remove her Spanish heritage. The term “scholarship boy” came from Richard Hoggart’s The Uses of Literacy and means that the student must move between two culturally extreme environments during their progression of education. In Rodriquez’s account of his early educational experiences, he demonstrates Hoggart’s core definition of being a scholarship boy to the tee. While finishing his dissertation...
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...can be challenging between states let alone entire continents. Both Firoozeh and her family had to adapt at alarming rates. In the short story Funny in Farsi by Firoozeh Dumas, she highlights specific incidents in her life as a young girl to show that it is not easy being a foreigner in an unfamiliar country. A stretching problem throughout the entirety of the text is that Firoozeh’s family has little to no knowledge of the english language. For example, when Firoozeh is asked to show her complete knowledge of the english language, all she can say is a few colors, “...proudly recited all that I knew: “White, yellow, orange, red, purple, blue, green.” When enrolling in her new...
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...Firoozeh Dumas’ novel Funny in Farsi tells the story of Firoozeh and her family’s many experiences in America, of all the characters in the memoir one of Firoozeh’s most influential and favorite family members is her father, Kazem. Throughout her life in America her father has stood out to her the most, even referring him as the “main character”(191). This Coat of Arms represents Kazem’s ambition and good luck in America, great love towards his family, and his generosity towards others. One of the first things noticeable in the Coat of Arms are elephant trunks/tusks, which represent “good luck and ambition” according to the family trees and crests website. Throughout the book Firoozeh includes tales by her father and how his incredible luck has allowed him to get a Fulbright grant, which let him study abroad in America. While he did not speak english his luck allowed him to make a Pakistani friend in which both of them bonded over food and their similar situation of not speaking...
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...“Does my Head Look Big in This” and “Funny in Farsi,” gives reader a glimpse into the real world of first and second generation Islamic Immigrants. DMHLBIT describes a Muslim Australian teens’ journey from childhood to adulthood. The plot begins when Eleventh grader, Randa, begins wearing the hijab full-time and follows the backlash from her family, school and crush. FIF is coming of age memoir that follows Fizoozeh Dumas in her journey from second grade immigrant into her interracial marriage. The memoir is written as short stories; these give reader a glimpse into the everyday struggles and joys of being a first generation immigrant. FIF and DMHLBIT debate inter growth to physical Growth while both show casing strong female character that...
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