was obsessed with Middle East politics and he was obsessed with the Iranian national soccer team, we had assumed here, in this country where people could pronounce our names, our world would expand. Instead, we felt constricted. Everywhere, it seemed, there were barriers. Of thought and behavior, of places and time. And most dizzying of all, a culture of transgression that could only be learned through firsthand experience. For women, there were eternal limits on dress and comportment, but they could be flouted easilyâin the right neighborhood, at the right time of the day or month, in the right way. Young couples also faced endless prohibitions, but these too could be circumvented, with the right verbal pretexts, at the right times, in the right places.
Ignorance of this culture made you a victim, marooned at home with bad Islamic television. Knowing how to navigate its rules gave you freedom, to choose a lifestyle as sedentary or riotous as you pleased. As newcomers, Daria and I were only familiar with a simple, American sort of freedom. Confronted with an oppressive system, we instinctively viewed the Iranians around us as victims, because armed with only our knowledge of California highways and the mall, we had not the slightest idea how to exercise freedom, Tehran-style. We couldnât conceive of a life where you forcibly took your rights, through adept arguments and heaps of attitude. Where you lived âas ifâ the rules didnât exist, and took the skirmishes for granted. And so it felt that in Tehran, even the sky shrank, the streets twined in mazes, and the whole of existence retreated under imposing barriers.
Life in America came with its own set of frontiers, but they were familiar, and from the vantage point of Tehran, seemed more subtle, more bearable. As for a Middle Eastern person, they were symbolic barriers placed
between you and your culture, in the Islam-bashing and prejudice that seeped into everyday life, ephemeral barriers between you and your peace of mind, as you had to work to disregard the slights and political slander and ignorance that presented themselves so routinely, in so many guises.
The barriers here were overwhelming, in your face, physical and visual. There were walls and partitions, dour billboards and angry-looking pasdars, around at all times to enforce them. I wasnât sure which ones I preferred, or perhaps better, which ones I despised least. In America, I hadnât learned, really, how to scale the barriers. They were political and amorphous, and often I felt they existed only in my head, that I created and carted them about myself. For now, these Iranian barriers frightened me. They produced incessant confrontations between people itching to scream at one another, escalate, and let loose the brew of anger and resentment inside.
To conduct successful and active social lives in Tehran, young people devoted much energy to avoiding the police. These efforts created a sort of predictive science, similar to how people who live in traffic-congested cities try to plan their schedules around rush hour and congested neighborhoods. It was a complicated task. There were several different brands of police and militia, with distinct vehicles, dress, beat, and mandate. They sometimes behaved erratically, and made unexpected appearances at places like pizza parlors, with the obvious aim of keeping everyone in a permanent state of low-level anxiety.
One day, some enterprising Iranian-American from Los Angeles would move to Tehran and set up a radio with ten-minute updates on police flow around the city (âThereâs a heavy komiteh presence northbound on Modaress expressway, and a Basiji checkpoint on Aghdasieh Boulevard, but Mohseni Square is flowingâ). Keeping this sort of thing in the back of your mind at all times was unpleasant.
It was the kind of emotional strain that I stopped thinking about consciously. Iranians didnât make a big deal out of it,
Ignorance of this culture made you a victim, marooned at home with bad Islamic television. Knowing how to navigate its rules gave you freedom, to choose a lifestyle as sedentary or riotous as you pleased. As newcomers, Daria and I were only familiar with a simple, American sort of freedom. Confronted with an oppressive system, we instinctively viewed the Iranians around us as victims, because armed with only our knowledge of California highways and the mall, we had not the slightest idea how to exercise freedom, Tehran-style. We couldnât conceive of a life where you forcibly took your rights, through adept arguments and heaps of attitude. Where you lived âas ifâ the rules didnât exist, and took the skirmishes for granted. And so it felt that in Tehran, even the sky shrank, the streets twined in mazes, and the whole of existence retreated under imposing barriers.
Life in America came with its own set of frontiers, but they were familiar, and from the vantage point of Tehran, seemed more subtle, more bearable. As for a Middle Eastern person, they were symbolic barriers placed
between you and your culture, in the Islam-bashing and prejudice that seeped into everyday life, ephemeral barriers between you and your peace of mind, as you had to work to disregard the slights and political slander and ignorance that presented themselves so routinely, in so many guises.
The barriers here were overwhelming, in your face, physical and visual. There were walls and partitions, dour billboards and angry-looking pasdars, around at all times to enforce them. I wasnât sure which ones I preferred, or perhaps better, which ones I despised least. In America, I hadnât learned, really, how to scale the barriers. They were political and amorphous, and often I felt they existed only in my head, that I created and carted them about myself. For now, these Iranian barriers frightened me. They produced incessant confrontations between people itching to scream at one another, escalate, and let loose the brew of anger and resentment inside.
To conduct successful and active social lives in Tehran, young people devoted much energy to avoiding the police. These efforts created a sort of predictive science, similar to how people who live in traffic-congested cities try to plan their schedules around rush hour and congested neighborhoods. It was a complicated task. There were several different brands of police and militia, with distinct vehicles, dress, beat, and mandate. They sometimes behaved erratically, and made unexpected appearances at places like pizza parlors, with the obvious aim of keeping everyone in a permanent state of low-level anxiety.
One day, some enterprising Iranian-American from Los Angeles would move to Tehran and set up a radio with ten-minute updates on police flow around the city (âThereâs a heavy komiteh presence northbound on Modaress expressway, and a Basiji checkpoint on Aghdasieh Boulevard, but Mohseni Square is flowingâ). Keeping this sort of thing in the back of your mind at all times was unpleasant.
It was the kind of emotional strain that I stopped thinking about consciously. Iranians didnât make a big deal out of it,
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