Funny In Farsi Analysis

“Humans are born selfish, savage, feral little beasts, no different from wolves or tigers,” according to conservative journalist John Hawkins. In America, being an outsider, or other times called an immigrant, one gets treated differently, than they would if one is a full-fledged citizen. As an immigrant, one does not have an opportunity to live as a normal United States citizen because of those selfish human beings. The memoir Funny in Farsi by Firoozeh Dumas, and the editorial cartoons “Show Me Your Papers” by Mike Luckovich and “Great American Melting Pot” by Richard Crowson all represent the same factors of how immigrants are affected; these different articles and pictures describe the process of how the immigrants are treated differently, whether it is with jobs, with people, or the way others think of them—these topics are just the base of the problem with immigration, all pertaining to the way other U.S. citizens treat immigrants.
Immigrants are affected within the way they’re treated to further them in life in jobs. In Funny in Farsi Dumas father was affected in a big way considering nobody would let him even try to get a job, “At fifty-eight, my father found himself unemployed and with no prospects. Nobody wanted to hire an Iranian” (Dumas 117). Dumas father struggle finding a job after several American

hostages were taken in Tehran, people thought since a couple of Iranians were bad, that all of them were. This affected Dumas’ father in how he lived further in life because he couldn’t find a job for a long time, and it affected his family as well. This is showing and explaining that an immigrant doesn’t get to live how a normal American does, and this just adds more factors to the way they’re living. The editorial cartoon “Great American Melting Pot,” it says, “Whew! Keeping this stirred is hard work! Wonder if I could hire an immigrant to do it…” (Crowson) This cartoon is explaining that when immigrants come into America, most companies don’t want them running a business or working in the head department of a business, so they use them as almost slaves instead of actual workers. They treat the immigrant workers different than other workers, taking away their privileges and correlating with the ability to achieve full-fledged citizenship. Jobs must be the one thing that affects immigrants most because of the way they look or talk, and it doesn’t help them anymore to achieve that citizenship.
Another way that immigrants are affected within the United States is with the way they’re treated by other people. Dumas recalls that when the Shah and his wife came to America, her family went to go see them, and Iran would pay for their whole trip, “’Are you completely crazy?’ ‘Haven’t you heard about the anti-Shah demonstrators?’ ‘You’ll definitely get beaten up’” (Dumas 111). This was before Dumas’ family went to Washington D.C.. While Dumas’ family was in Washington D.C., they got a note, “Dear Brainwashed Cowards, You are nothing but puppets of the corrupt Shah. We will teach you a lesson you will never forget. Death to the Shah. Death to you” (Dumas 112). This letter shook up the Dumas family, although the father didn’t care much. After being chased with sticks with nails drilled into them, they went back to the hotel, where they found another letter, “Dear Brainwashed Cowards, We are going to blow you up” (Dumas 114). All of these notes and all of these things people were saying really affected the way the Dumas family, and a whole bunch of other immigrants go further in life. This affected their privileges, saying they are going to be killed really scares them, taking away their privileges. The treatment of these immigrants influences their ability to live a normal life like all other people living in America.
The privileges that immigrants have affects their way of living also.

The editorial cartoon “Show Me Your Papers” shows a cartoon of a man and a family of immigrants, with the man saying “Show me your papers”(Luckovich). This picture shows that most people think that all immigrants are illegal or undocumented, and that affects most immigrant’s way of living and takes away most of their privileges. The treatment of immigrants like this, influences the way they achieve full-fledged citizenship also. Immigrants are treated way differently with this cartoon backing it up to show that people don’t understand that most immigrants, don’t ever get treated

right.
The be all end all in this is immigrants have a chance to reach that full fledged citizenship, but in the end, it doesn’t matter if they are a citizen, it only matters how they feel about being American. Whether they’re treated like a U.S. citizen or treated like an immigrant. The treatment of immigrants affects the way they develop to be an U.S. citizen with their ability to become a full-fledged citizen, and give them all of their privileges in America.