Funny in Farsi and the Complications of Immigrant Acceptance Dessi M. Gravely College

In Funny in Farsi, Firoozeh Dumas explains that her father, Kazem, had studied and worked in America and “often spoke about America with the eloquence and wonder normally reserved for a first love. To him, America was a place where anyone, no matter how humble his background, could become an important person” (3). Hearing her father’s wondrous stories of clean bathrooms and ever-friendly citizens, Dumas had anticipated a warm, welcoming country. For the most part, that is what she initially received upon her immigration to America. After the Iranian Revolution, however, many opinions had changed about people of Iranian heritage, but in a manner that perhaps exposed an American form of myopia. As Dumas indicates in one of her book's most important ironies, Americans went from having never heard of Iran to assumingly knowing everything about its people and their culture.

Funny in Farsi explores the different prejudices associated with being an immigrant in America, and the tendencies many Americans have to judge other countries and cultures. Dumas tells, “I was lucky to have come to America years before the political upheaval in Iran. The Americans we encountered were kind and curious, unafraid to ask questions and willing to...