My father returned to Texas a much happier man. His meeting with Albert Einstein had confirmed his suspicion that anything is possible in America. He spent the next few months finishing his studies and getting ready to return to Abadan, where he looked forward to feeling once again the warmth and kindness of his siblings.

He was, however, returning with more than just a diploma. He also had a new dream, in which the treasure was no longer buried. He dreamed that someday, he would return to America with his own children. And they, the children of an engineer from Abadan, would have access to the same educational opportunities as anybody else, even the sons of senators and the rich. It was a dream that my brothers and I were honored to fulfill.

IT’s All Relatives

IT’s All Relatives

It’s said that Inuits have more than twenty words for “snow.” This seems logical given that the average Alaskan spends a lifetime surrounded by snow, observing details that the rest of us have never noticed.

Having spent my adolescence in Newport Beach, I learned the many nuances of “tan.” I learned the difference between a deep tan, a fading tan, a bronze tan, and a new tan. No one would be caught dead with a farmer’s tan, which is a tan showing the outline of a T-shirt and shorts. Even worse is a fake ’n’ bake, one acquired in a tanning booth. A surfer’s tan is the most desirable, since it also comes with sun-bleached hair.

Growing up in Iran, I was surrounded not by snow or tanned people, but by relatives. Not surprisingly, my native language, Persian, contains many more precise words for relatives than does the English language. My father’s brothers are my amoo. My mother’s brother is a dye-yee. My aunts’ husbands are either shohar ammeh or shohar khaleh, depending on which side of the family they are from. In English, all these men are simply my “uncles.” Only one word describes their children in English, “cousin,” whereas in Persian, we have eight words to describe the exact relationship of each cousin.

When we lived in Abadan, we lived near my father’s oldest sister, Sedigeh. She is my ameh, my father’s sister. Her four sons are my pessar ameh, “sons of father’s sister.” Our families spent every free moment together and I always thought of my aunt Sedigeh and uncle Abdullah as a second set of parents. Since my aunt Sedigeh never had a daughter, she regarded me as her own. Always warm and affectionate, she showered me with compliments that stayed with me long after our visits had ended. She often told me that I was smart and patient and that she wished that I were her daughter. She never criticized me, but loved me as only a father’s sister could. To me, the word ameh still conjures up feelings of being enveloped with love.