Firoozeh Dumas Global Citizens

Global Citizens Firoozeh Dumas calls herself a “global citizen” in her enlightening book. Before reading about Dumas’ experiences, I simply assumed the book would reveal how many different ethnicities she belonged to. However, I found that Dumas is an intelligent and witty Iranian writer from Abadan, Iran, who came to American and married a French man. I would never have thought that one woman could have encompassed so many different cultures in her lifetime. The description of a “global citizen” means that a person is culturally well-rounded; he or she is neither prejudice nor exclusive toward other cultures. A global citizen enjoys learning about unfamiliar cultures and traveling to foreign places. Global citizens appreciate cultural differences and find ways to implement new

Dumas was born in Abadan. At a young age, she and her family moved to Tehran, Iran, where they would live for only a year, and then they moved to Ahwaz for six months. Finally, America was their last stop. Dumas experienced many cultural differences from just moving around with her family. In the novel Dumas states, “Most immigrants agree that at some point, we become permanent foreigners, belonging neither here nor there” (Dumas 68). Dumas expresses that she feels she belongs to more than one part of the world because home is in more than one place to her. She even asserts, “All I know is that this feeling of being on the outside has shaped me into the perfect party guest” (Dumas 69). As a foreigner in America, Dumas finds her Persian culture to be dissimilar from American culture. Whether it may be the food, wardrobe, or educational system, there is a clear difference Dumas appreciates. However, she is not the only foreign person living in the United States. Her partner in life, a French man named Francois, introduced her to French culture and food. Dumas considers her involvement in various cultures a blessing in disguise because she can blend all the cultures she has