Letter To Firoozeh Dumas Essay

When people think of the F word, they tend to think of a certain four letter. To Firoozeh Dumas, the F word means years of discrimination. After living in America for 29 years, Dumas decided to write stories for her children about her life growing up Iranian in America. These stories were later published as Funny in Farsi: A Memoir Growing Up Iranian in America. At age nine Dumas moved from Iran to permanently live in America where she and her family were harassed for their difficult to pronounce names. Fed up with the harassment, Dumas decided to change her first name to a more American name in middle school. However, as she entered college, Dumas decided her appreciation for her own culture was more important than if her peers can say her name properly so she started to go by Firoozeh again.

Dumas approaches the dark topic of bullying, because of cultural differences, with light humor. She argues that Americans should expanding their cultural awareness by providing stories on how bullying

destroyed her appreciation for her own culture.
Firoozeh Dumas starts her lesson about culture appreciation by stating family member’s names and their American translation.

“My cousin’s name, Farbod, means “Greatness.” When he moved to America, all the kids called him “Farthead”(Dumas). This immediately grabs the reader’s attention and holds it as Dumas continues on saying how she never imagined her name would be “such an obstacle” when her family moved from Iran to America. She was shocked at the cruelty that Americans were subjecting her to all because of her name. The abuse shaped her opinion not only on her new home but America in general. Firoozeh Dumas had never stepped foot in America so Whittier, California became her perspective window on how all Americans acted. Judging by the brutal abuse she was subject to, Dumas most likely had a negative view towards all of Americans. If the Americans she came in contact with had been accepting of her culture, Dumas would not have had to change a piece of her identity to fit

in.
When Dumas moved from Whittier, California to Newport Beach, her opinion on how all Americans will treat her moved with her. In anticipation for the cruelty of her peers, Dumas decided that all her problems would be fixed if her Iranian name changed to a more American name. Her father suggested “Fifi” but Dumas humorously responded with, “Had I had a special affinity for French poodles or been considering a career in prostitution, I would’ve gone with that one”(Dumas). She brushes in humor almost to distract her children and future listeners from the fact that she was changing her entire identity based on an opinion obtained from one small community. This action didn’t only change her name but her life and how others view her yet Dumas brushes the shock factor away by layering her story with humor. However, the humor does not distract too much from the fact that the verbal abuse caused Firoozeh, the girl from Iran, to Julia, a typical American girl.
The verbal abuse didn’t not stop when Firoozeh became Julia. Instead, it shifted from herself to her culture. Dumas’ peers saw her as American Julia so their tongues were not censored about their opinions on those “‘damn I-raynians’”(Dumas). Dumas tried to run and hide from the cruel nicknames yet they still seemed to follow and taunt her. She states in a metaphor how hiding behind an American name is like “wearing X-ray glasses that let you see people undressed”(Dumas). Dumas was able to see the true feelings of everyone around her. She then put two and two together to conclude that if she had stuck by her true name she would have never been accepted let alone invited to friend’s houses.
Near the end of her lesson, Dumas confesses that she went back to using her true name when she started college with no problems. It was not till after graduation that her problems began to arise. Dumas was not able to score a job no matter if she aced the interview or not. Her humor subsided as she talked about just how much cultural discrimination affected her adult life and how she could not score a job because her name was not American. In response, Dumas changed her name back to Julia and, as she puts it, “the job offers started coming in”(Dumas). She kept her name as Julia till she became a mother and the only people there to judge her were in “diapers and were in no position to judge”(Dumas). Every now and again, she would be reminded how discriminative Americans can be by them mispronouncing her name or completely ignoring her. By the end, Dumas was fed up with how much discrimination affected her life and decided to implement her life lesson into her children, and later, Americans.
Having grown up in a world where her own name repelled people, Dumas decided that her own children will learn to never discriminate against others. She made her life lesson lighthearted by adding humor to ensure her lesson did not just guilt trip her kids. It also made her message to be culturally accepting easier to hear than just pointing an accusatory finger at Americans and demanding that they change. Had Dumas been sympathetic towards those with speech or hearing impairments that couldn’t help mispronouncing her name, her argument could have been stronger by making it aware that she understood sometimes mispronunciation cannot be helped. Either way, Dumas was able to successfully persuade Americans to expand their cultural awareness.