Today I woke up uncertain,
and you know that gives me the fits,
so I left this land of fungible convictions,
because it seemed like the pits
And when I say, “conviction”,
I mean it’s something to abjure
and when I say “uncertain”,
I mean to doubt I’ll not turn out a caricature.
So I set off in search of my forbears,
‘coz my forebearance was in need.
– Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, “Ballad of the Sin Eater”
So this weekend I was back in Santa Monica. I don’t say “home” (although that’s what’s marked on my cell phone), because it’s not really my home anymore. The Bay Area is my home now. This is where I hang my hat, or in my case, kick off my Birkenstocks. I didn’t see any of my friends (not cause I didn’t want to, it just didn’t work out), a few of which were in town, nor did I make any pilgrimages to some of my favorite eateries (Mashti Malone’s, Diddy Reise, The Apple Pan, Bay Cities Deli). I spent the bulk of my weekend hanging out at the house with my folks, my brother, and my cousin Reza. I also got a couple of driving lessons from Grandpa and my dad on how to drive stickshift. Probably around Xmas time, or definately by January, I’ll be the proud new owner of a manual transmission Volkswagen Golf — my Mom’s old ride, that was bought from a Swiss diplomat in Los Angeles a few years ago.
All that aside, one of my favorite moments this past weekend was spending time with my little cousin Roya, who is about to turn four. She’s the youngest of my cousin Ali’s three kids, and I first met her this past summer at a family wedding in DC. Given that she was born to two Americanized Iranians, she speaks fluent English and Farsi at the level of a four-year-old. She’s really cute and is still young enough to not know that I don’t speak fluent Farsi — she speaks at about my level. I can ask her simple questions in Farsi and she’ll respond. Then I’ll switch to English and she’ll switch languages with no problem. She’s taken to calling me “Bearded Cyrus” (سیروس ریشهی) to distinguish me from the other Cyrus in our family.
On Thanksgiving, toward the tail end of the evening, she and I sat in the children’s library/playroom. I grabbed a Farsi kid’s book that’s used for teaching letters of the alphabet that has pictures to go along with it. ا is for اسب and so on. (“Alef” is for “Asb” [horse].) We went through the whole book, that included a section for numbers 1-10 at the back and she did the whole book in Farsi and English. I was pretty impressed. She even tossed in a few Spanish words that she knew, particularly around the numbers section. Why don’t more parents teach their children their mother tougne, no matter if it’s a semi-obscure language like Farsi? If my Dad had taught me when I was that young I would be fluent by now.
Of the six grandchildren on my Dad’s side, the only one who currently speaks fluent Farsi is my cousin Babak, now a law student at Berkeley. Four of us speak fluent French (Babak, Romain, Sébastien, and me), four of us speak fluent English (Babak, me, Alex and Reza). The more I interact with my family, the more I realize that I need to learn Farsi. I’ve taken some classes at Berkeley, and today I understand more than I can speak. I’ve decided that sometime within the next three to five years that I need to live in Iran for at least a few months. (Being the son of an Iranian makes me eligible to be drafted, which is not a prospect that I relish. As a result, I’m only allowed to stay in the country for three months without being drafted.) I want my children to be able to speak at least English, French and Farsi. Spanish would probably also be useful, but I think three is good to start with.
The older I get, the more I feel a connection, or at least I want to feel a connection to my Persian heritage. Sitting here in my office in San Francisco, I’ve got pistachios on my desk, a poster of the Iranian national soccer team from 1998 above me, and a copy of Rosetta Stone Farsi next to my computer monitor.
After we finished the first Farsi book, she wanted to switch to an English book. I let her look at it while I found another Farsi children’s book to read. It was a similar alphabet book. I kept interrupting her with questions: “What animal is this?” and so on as I flipped through it. I eventually got to the last page and asked her what it was. After answering correctly, Roya said in a very exasparated voice:
کتاب تمام شده ؟ (Ketab tamaam shodeh?)
(Is the book [finally] over?)
I chuckled. She does speak my language, after all. 
I really enjoyed reading this; it sounds like you had a wonderful weekend. I find it so super sweet and silly that Roya calls you Bearded Cyrus that I may start calling you that myself. (Ha ha.)
Anyway, during carpool last week, I was talking with Gurunathan about the subject of mother languages and children of emigrants. Though his wife grew up in Houston, she still speaks the language (Tamil) native to the Indian state where she’s from (Chennai). Her parents felt it very important for her to understand their mother tongue; they didn’t want her to lose touch with her Indian heritage and culture.
This is markedly different from my father’s experience with his Russian-emigrant parents. The only time he remembers them speaking in Russian was when they were arguing and didn’t want the rest of us to understand. When asked about why they wouldn’t speak Russian at home, my grandmother would only say, “We’re American now. You’re an American. We speak English at home.” My grandparents even sent my father to a different church and Sunday school, since the church they attended only held services in Russian. It is hard for me to believe that my grandparents went to such lengths in the 40s and 50s to make sure my father was as — to be cliché — as American as apple pie. But in doing this, they also unwittingly initiated the loss of his connection with a large chunk of his family history and culture.
It’s wonderful to know that this is happening less and less as we, especially in the US, become more accepting of diversity and as immigrants to this country strive not to assimilate, but to hold on to their native cultures, including languages. Do you think it’s a by-product of globalization or something more?
(Phew, sorry so long-winded, but you know me!)