Déraciner

“Déraciner” is one of the words the French used for immigrant. It refers to a person who is uprooted from his original place. One of the phrases that we use to damn in Persian is ”در به در بشی” “dar be dar”,it means someone whowas forced to leave her place, her city and her house. Am I dammed?

I left my country 4 years ago by [...]. Why? I was a member of the electoral campaign for the reformist candidate in Iran in 2009. The regime was cheating in the election to keep “Ahmadi Nejad” in power. All we did was trying to demonstrate. I was arrested just one week after the election. I was in prison for 75 days of which two months was an isolated cell. I realized afterwards my father had bailed me out. I realized this was a temporary situation, so after a while I left Iran by foot and went to [...]. i asked some embassies of different countries and the UN to help me. I came to France because they helped me the quickest. I came to France without knowing any word of French, i did not event know how to say “bonjour”. I don't want to tell my history about how I left or how I managed a new life form nothing in another country; may be in the future!

I love new experiences and France was full of new things: new people, new culture, new language, new tradition, new geography. Learning new things and meeting new people was exiting but after while i realized the other side of excitement is my need to feel safe and calm. to feel safe i need the things that i know, i need some tradition which are memorable, I need old friends, i need to play with rules that i know.

You could imagine that easiest part of socializing is saying “Hello” and greeting someone. But I should to tell you even this simple part of social life became something that you need to think and learn about if you are not in your home country. When do you shake hands? When should you kiss cheek and how? Is it necessary to have hug? Those things happened in your country automatically. Of course I could learn those simple things, but you know it does not come automatically. In summary, every simple part of social life could require energy when you are out of your country.

But the only place that I knew was Iran, the only language that I knew how to express my complex feelings in was Persian, the only tradition that i really know every thing about was the Iranian tradition, the only culture that I could ever fully understand that was Persian Culture.

You don't feel like you belong when you don't feel safe and calm, and you don't feel safe and calm if you don't know the situation surrounding you. If your need to “belong” is satisfied then you don't realized how important it is.

It has been just 6 weeks since I moved to Boston (US);there are so many things to discover as well. this is a very exciting situation for me. this time, Iran is not the only place that I know. Now two country seem familiar to me, Iran and France. now I have better feeling for France, now i feel like i miss France and i like that. Does this means I could have the feeling of belonging to another land other than Iran?

Don’t forget their argument

A method I use to improve my English is listening to podcasts. Everyday I listen to podcasts on different subjects: politics, love and history. One of the podcasts that I have listened to is called “Making the Nation.” This series describes several important national events in the US. Some of the episodes that I listened to were about the Civil War in the US. As you know, for a long time Americans kidnapped many people from Africa and brought them to the US as very cheap workers without any citizenship rights. Slaves had to work hard and for that work they received shelter to sleep in and some food to survive. Even after the US Congress finally recognized that those people were human and that just because they were black didn't mean that they should be used as tools the southern part of the country didn't accept. Why? The southerners believed that without those cheap workers their businesses would go bust. They were right. After slavery was abolished, their businesses went bust. Don’t forget their argument: we don't agree with abolishing slavery because our businesses need cheap workers.

To improve my English several people recommended that I read in English text regularly. The first article that I read was in The New York Times because this newspaper is available on my kindle for one free month. That was some weeks ago but that report still remains in my mind. That report was about negotiations between illegal immigrant and republican congressman. Illegal immigrants are 12 million people that live in US without any document. this means they came to US like all the other Americans who arrived without getting visaes from Native Americans. it s necessary to remind you that millions of them were born in US and the majority of hard work is done by these kinds of cheap official undocumented workers. These guys have to work hard jobs without getting the minimum wage. Also, they can't go to the police to sue their master or other person because they are undocumented. On the other hand, millions of human beings in the US have to work too hard to have a shelter to sleep, some food to survive without having any rights. Could we say that US business are replacing black workers with cheap brown workers?

everyone recommends that you learn another language by talking with native speaker. fortunately I could find someone who is interested in learning Persian in return for teaching me English. usually we divide every meeting in two part. one part we talk in English the other part talk in Persian. Usually our subject is political issue. Just after Obama's State of the Union speech, I had a meeting with an African American guy. The part of Obama speech that was about Iran did not have any new points, but some point that he said about equality in opportunity for all or increase in the minimum wage was interesting for me. I asked this African-american guy what he thinks about the minimum wage that Obama mentioned. He said those phrases are beautiful but are not practical. "However, now, so many workers work for 5 dollar or less; they have to work too hard just to have a shelter to sleep or food to survive. Do you know what it does means?" i asked. he said, “you know this is not good but you should not forget that if we increase the minimum wage many of our businesses would go bust. I replied that the problem is that I dont forget this argument but do you remember origin of this argument?