Funny in Farsiby Firoozeh Dumas

Release date/ Length: 2003 / 187 pages

Synopsis (from the front cover): In 1972, when she was seven, Firoozeh Dumas and her family moved from Iran to Southern California, arriving with no first-hand knowledge of this country beyond her father’s glowing memories of his graduate school years here. More family soon followed, and the clan has been here ever since.

First line: When I was seven, my parents, my fourteen-year-old brother, Farshid, and I moved from Abadan, Iran, to Whittier, California.

Review: I know, I know, I’m really behind in reading this one!  But when it first came out, the waiting list was so long, I just sort of forgot about it until recently…  But for some reason I remembered that I never had read it and found the waiting list to be considerably shorter, six years later.

As I’ve written before, I have a wonderful friend who was born in Iran and have been fascinated by Iranian culture for years.  I loved The Rooftops of Tehran (read it! read it!) and am always excited to read and learn more about this complex, rich culture.

So, I was a little disappointed that Funny in Farsi was actually set in the U.S., seen through the eyes of a woman who moved to the U.S. at the age of seven.  What I did find interesting was how different her experiences seem to be from my friend’s — who moved here at about the same age around the same time.  This is probably less a reflection of the state of our country at the time, and more an indication of the individual’s personality and perspective. 

While my friend speaks very fondly of his birth country and is very connected to his family and culture, he has also embraced his “new” home as well and is able to appreciate that the U.S., like every country, is a mix of injustice, compassion, bigotry, idealism, small-mindedness, and generosity.  Of course, I could continue to combine and juxtapose the ambivalence that describes any large group of people endlessly… 

But while I was saddened and not surprised at the extent of the bigotry and smallmindedness Dumas experienced, I was disappointed that she was unable to recognize what her father obviously loved about his adopted country.  But after reading about how left-out she was growing up outside the Christmas tradition — and then how irritated she was by the excess of the holiday once she married a Christian and began to celebrate it with her children, I quickly realized the issue was less her surroundings and more her innate personality.  I couldn’t help but notice the irony in her statement: “Throughout his job ordeal, my father never complained. He remained an Iranian who loved his native country but who also believed in American ideals. He only said how sad it was that people so easily hate an entire population simply because of the actions of a few. And was a waste it is to hate, he always said. What a waste.”  I couldn’t help but wonder if she recognized that she tended to do the same thing with Americans…  (Except the residents of Berekley, who somehow escape her scorn).

So, I guess my overall opinion would be: disappointed.  I found her humor “snarky” and shortsighted.  Dumas had such a great opportunity to hold a mirror before our (American) eyes, yet the examples she chose as representative of “Americans” didn’t ring true as all-encompassing.  I know I have the distinct advantage of having travelled the entire 50 states and many, many other countries – and of teaching for 15 years — so I can never, with a clear conscience, make sweeping generalizations to cover any segment of humanity anywhere.  But I felt disappointed that she wasn’t a bit more inclusive and seasoned in her view.  Honestly, her perspective felt a bit adolescent, a time when young people try to fit people in boxes to help define their own (“better”) identity.

I also thought the structure of the memoir was very disjointed — almost a stream of consciousness at times.  If I had been her editor ( ), I would have organized around vignettes — she really brings to life her family well, so maybe focus more on character sketches?  Or, since she clearly wants to express her disgust with much of American culture, she could have organized her memoir topically, perhaps?  “Holidays” “Family” “Ignorance” and then compared how Iranians and Americans view each topic differently.

Any other reactions?   I would love to hear why this was so popular, too…?

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