An Iranian immigrant’s experience…

I have a colleague who is Iranian-American.  He came to the United States by way of England.  He agreed to take by interview, and here are his answers…

1. Revolution, War, lawlessness and insane corruption. Furthermore, an absolute disregard for human rights and most importantly human life.
2. I traveled alone, I guess you can say I was the guinea pig that opened the gates, because after that several of my family members also left the country. I was first relieved that I was finally out of chaos and finally can “do life!” The big difference was of course the language. Obviously, learning a language without the cultural adjustments it’s not the same. However, soon I realized in many ways I was not welcomed, i.e. “you are not one of us no matter how much you try…” -kind of a situation! It might not have been said directly but I could feel it. Though, not being naive about it, this is, in so many ways normal. In many settings and cultures this is very common, what I mean by this, is that people of the same region, religion, color, etc., tend to bond together – generally speaking.
3. The reasons why certain people don’t accept others of different countries/backgrounds could be very puzzling; whether that is one’s lack of knowledge, lack of travel, lack of understanding, bring-up, ignorance, or whether it is just a pure prejudice. The answer could still be an “ambiguous realty” that even voluminous research theses may not be able to retort – we are dealing with complex human-mind after all!
4. The answer in 3 also covers some of the answer for question 4, nonetheless, on the optimistic side of things and truly realizing that I would not have been here if it wasn’t for the people that helped me. In all and all, I am extremely grateful for the tremendous amount of help I have received in the countries that I lived in. In my opinion, there are far more people with kind-heart and massive compassion that genuinely try to help all types of people, in particular, people that are not from the same region. Not to sound cliché… but we all know, there are all sorts of people everywhere, caring, loving, generous, compassionate, empathetic, AND, prejudice, racist, etc., and etc.
5. Education systems to me are all the same with small tweaks here and there which is built-in depending on that particular country’s culture and years of trial and error. So, I did not have any culture-shock for education!
It was exhilarating to say the least! To be able to “fully” understand and say things in a different language… but also mentally exhausting in a sense that – if you have an analytical mind like mine – I was always trying to compare words and try and say things in a different way.
6. Honestly, we can make a tiny differences seem like huge, of course there are differences, some big, and some not so important… however, I want to concentrate on what is the same everywhere: people want to live safe, prosperous and take care of their families! To me that’s what the big picture looks like. Therefore, there are no big differences!
7. I feel accepted everywhere! ☺ But seriously, I do feel like I am accepted everywhere and also among my fellow countrymen! I would imaging for staying away for more than ¼ of a century from anywhere things will change, landscape, roads, etc.
8. Assimilation works only if one wants to accept new ways. In my experience, some people are very adaptable by nature and others might be more rigid to their own ways. I believe age has an important role in influencing this notion, and plays a great factor regarding this concept.
9. People are so different… although I mentioned that the younger that a person is they may adapt to new ways better (and we are not talking really young, but for example teens), however, I have seen older people maybe in their late twenties or mid-thirties that are really good at adapting to new ways, and welcoming new/different cultural norms. In summary, I’d like to reiterate that this is quite a deep subject, because we are dealing with complex human beings from different backgrounds and cultural upbringings.