My mother soon decided that the easiest way for her to communicate with Americans was to use me as an interpreter. My brother Farshid, with his schedule full of soccer, wrestling, and karate, was too busy to be recruited for this dubious honor. At an age when most parents are guiding their kids toward independence, my mother was hanging on to me for dear life. I had to accompany her to the grocery store, the hairdresser, the doctor, and every place else that a kid wouldn’t want to go. My reward for doing this was the constant praise of every American we encountered. Hearing a seven-year-old translate Persian into English and vice versa made quite an impression on everyone. People lavished compliments on me. “You must be very, very smart, a genius maybe.” I always responded by assuring them that if they ever moved to another country, they, too, would learn the language. (What I wanted to say was that I wished I could be at home watching The Brady Bunch instead of translating the qualities of various facial moisturizers.) My mother had her own response to the compliments: “Americans are easily impressed.”

I always encouraged my mother to learn English, but her talents lay elsewhere. Since she had never learned English in school, she had no idea of its grammar. She would speak entire paragraphs without using any verbs. She referred to everyone and everything as “it,” leaving the listener wondering whether she was talking about her husband or the kitchen table. Even if she did speak a sentence more or less correctly, her accent made it incomprehensible. “W” and “th” gave her the most difficulty. As if God were playing a linguistic joke on us, we lived in “Vee-tee-er” (Whittier), we shopped at “Veetvood” (Whitwood) Plaza, I attended “Leffingvell” School, and our neighbor was none other than “Valter Villiams.”

Despite little progress on my mother’s part, I continually encouraged her. Rather than teach her English vocabulary and grammar, I eventually decided to teach her entire sentences to repeat. I assumed that once she got used to speaking correctly, I could be removed, like training wheels, and she would continue coasting. I was wrong.

Noticing some insects in our house one day, my mother asked me to call the exterminator. I looked up the number, then told my mother to call and say, “We have silverfish in our house.” My mother grumbled, dialed the number, and said, “Please come rrright a-vay. Goldfeeesh all over dee house.” The exterminator told her he’d be over as soon as he found his fishing pole.