It has been a crazy, mad, challenging couple of weeks in the life of Taraneh, and what's kept me alive is the 10-day vacation granted to us by our bosses earlier this month.
Starting tomorrow evening, I don't have to think for 10 whole days. I don't have any obligations. I can sleep in. I can work out in the middle of the day. I'm going to Vegas and Colorado. I get to party with my family and see my boyfriend.
There are lots of things to do before tomorrow night, but I don't care. I am really looking forward to it.
Happy Holidays!
12.20.2007
12.05.2007
The Namesake
I recently saw a movie that I really want to recommend to everyone I know, especially my fellow first-generation friends. Over the weekend, I rented "The Namesake" with my mom. "The Namesake" is based on a book by Jhumpa Lahiri, and it is the story of a young Bengali couple who moves from India to New York City to start a family.
It was excellent, subtle, real, and had me hooked two minutes in. Growing up as a first-generation Iranian, I often felt that my parents would never "get it," that I was doomed to a life of adhering to tradition, that I'd never get to just do my thing.
What I didn't see (and sometimes still don't) was their side. My parents gave up so much to ensure that we'd grow up with endless possibilities before us. Parenting never comes with a manual, but it often comes with some type support staff. My mom and dad, aged 22 and 21 when they got married and started a family here in California had NO ONE. When Ashima, the mother character, suffered through contractions alone in the city hospital as it panned to shots of her parents and siblings at home in India, I heard a whimper out of my own mom.
With fists full of damp tissues and a tear-stained face, she kept whispering, "I know exactly what that feels like."
Throughout the film, I saw these two people do everything to offer their children freedom and opportunity while struggling to instill a sense of culture and tradition in them, things that are easily lost in this society. Within that struggle, they often felt unwanted, unappreciated, misunderstood and most of all, heartbreakingly lonely.
Fellow first-generationers, for all our parents have done for us, it is the least we can do to respect the cultures that made them who they are. The older I get, the more I realize that as much as I'm an American, I am a proud Iranian, and I'm honored to be.
So yeah, "The Namesake." Watch it.
It was excellent, subtle, real, and had me hooked two minutes in. Growing up as a first-generation Iranian, I often felt that my parents would never "get it," that I was doomed to a life of adhering to tradition, that I'd never get to just do my thing.
What I didn't see (and sometimes still don't) was their side. My parents gave up so much to ensure that we'd grow up with endless possibilities before us. Parenting never comes with a manual, but it often comes with some type support staff. My mom and dad, aged 22 and 21 when they got married and started a family here in California had NO ONE. When Ashima, the mother character, suffered through contractions alone in the city hospital as it panned to shots of her parents and siblings at home in India, I heard a whimper out of my own mom.
With fists full of damp tissues and a tear-stained face, she kept whispering, "I know exactly what that feels like."
Throughout the film, I saw these two people do everything to offer their children freedom and opportunity while struggling to instill a sense of culture and tradition in them, things that are easily lost in this society. Within that struggle, they often felt unwanted, unappreciated, misunderstood and most of all, heartbreakingly lonely.
Fellow first-generationers, for all our parents have done for us, it is the least we can do to respect the cultures that made them who they are. The older I get, the more I realize that as much as I'm an American, I am a proud Iranian, and I'm honored to be.
So yeah, "The Namesake." Watch it.
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