My Cousin's Name Fartshit Language Analysis

Americans don’t always make an effort to understand or respect other cultures.

We often don’t take the time to learn how to pronounce foreign words and names; in fact we sometimes make fun of them. Firoozeh says, “My cousin’s name, Farbod, means ‘greatness’. When he moved to America, all the kids called him ‘Farthead. My brother Farshid became ‘Fartshit’ (1). When Firoozeh’s family moved to America they all were discriminated against because of their foreign names, because of this Firoozeh changed her name to Julie. Once she changed it people were able to pronounce her name and would approach her.

Other evidence that supports that Americans don’t make an effort is we are constantly judging others. We are supposed to be the land where

everyone is to be treated equally; however, we are still very discrimitive towards other races. Firoozeh says, “Even though I had graduated with honors from UC-Berkeley, I couldn’t get a single interview. I was guilty for being a humanities major, but I began to suspect that there was more to my problems. After three months of rejections, I added ‘Julie’ to my resume. Call it coincidence, but the job offers started coming in. Perhaps it’s the same kind of coincidence that keeps African Americans from getting cabs in New York” (3-4). Today we still discriminate towards others, not caring or understanding one another’s cultures and differences.