by Maz Jobrani
“Okay, bella, let’s stopp-o the talk-o and maka da love. Khhhhh-okay? I mean . . . okay-o?”
All This Time I Was White
When people meet me, they often assume I am fully immersed in the Persian culture and I am more Iranian than American. But when I reflect on my life, I realize I have spent most of it in America—and most of it surrounded by American friends. Their influence on me can be seen in many ways. For example, I have a 401(k). Most Iranians from the old country don’t even know what that is. When I talk to my mother about my 401(k), she thinks I’m talking about the new Mercedes.
Another American pastime that I took up as a child was baseball. I don’t know if I played this sport because I loved it or if I was trying to fit in. I didn’t realize how foreign baseball was to Iranians until I tried to explain the game to my grandfather. He would see me leaving the house with my mitt and bat: “Vhere are you going vith dat shovel?” For some reason he called the bat a shovel. It looks nothing like a shovel, but I guess he figured I was off to dig with it. To him the mitt must’ve been a gardening glove. I would explain that the bat is used to hit a ball and then you have to run around a diamond and make it back home. This just confused him more. “Vhy do you run around before you come home? Just come home. And if you see diamond, don’t run. Pick up. I have friend. He get us good money.”
The American-ness of baseball, and eventually my 401(k), were trumped by the American-ness of my choice to become an actor. This, to my Iranian parents, was the most foreign thing they had ever heard. “You vant to be actor? Vhat the hell does dat mean? Are you gay?” Persian parents, for the most part, don’t believe in their children pursuing dreams. To a Persian parent, there are only a few options in life, and those include lawyer, doctor, engineer, or, preferably, an engineering lawyer with a medical degree. Anything else, the community will frown upon. From an early age my dad would encourage me to be a lawyer. “You go to law eh-school. You get your degree. You vork for me.” Just like The Godfather. He wasn’t so much interested in a son as he was a consigliere.
The idea of becoming an actor came to me when I was twelve. At the time, Eddie Murphy was huge, and I wanted to be just like him. I participated in my school’s musical in the seventh grade and sang and danced my way to the lead the following year, where I got to play Li’l Abner. Whenever I was onstage, I felt alive. It was as fun for me to do plays as it was to play soccer and baseball, which were my other loves. My parents tried to be supportive, but I always felt that they were uncomfortable seeing me act.
They would come to my plays in obnoxious outfits. This being Marin County, most of the other parents showed up dressed nicely, but casual. My parents, on the other hand, had to stand out. It was as if they were out for a night at the Met. My dad would be in a suit and tie, my mom in a beautiful dress, my aunt in a mink coat, the rooster in a new vest—everyone was excited to be out for a night on the town. They would sit in the audience and watch, probably understanding every third word that came out of my mouth. I don’t think my parents ever really got what the plays were about, but they sat politely and clapped when they heard the cue.
My aunt, who was younger and understood the plays, couldn’t control her excitement. Every little thing that I did would warrant a standing ovation from her with a loud, “BRAVO Maziyar! Bravo!” Later in life I would learn to appreciate people yelling “bravo” from the audience, but at the age of twelve, living with a family of immigrants you were trying to distance yourself from, it was mortifying. I would be onstage and see my aunt standing in the audience. She looked like a lighthouse in the middle of the ocean. Everyone could see her. And they sure as hell could hear her. I would be trying to deliver my lines but also wanting to interrupt the play to deal with the disturbance. Namely, my family. My original hecklers.
“ENOUGH! All I did was recite a line. You can’t clap every time I say something! You’re making the show go long! Someone please grab this lady by her mink coat and escort her to the exit. Security?”
It took fourteen years to convince my parents that being an actor and comedian was an honorable profession. I was twenty-six when they finally accepted there was nothing they could do about it. “Deez damn Americans and their liberal vays,” they told each other, “have finally turned our son gay!” Choosing acting as my life’s profession was very much like what I imagine it would be to come out of the closet. At first they were both in denial. My father, who was living in Iran by that time, would continue to remind me on the phone that I should be going back to graduate school to get my Ph.D. in political science. “Vhen you go back and get your Ph.D. den you can go to law eh-school and den you can come vork for me.”
“Dad, I’m not going back.”
“Look, if you’re gay, just say you’re gay.”
“I’m not gay.”
“Den dat settles it. You vill get your degree and vork for me.”
“So if I were gay I couldn’t work for you?”
“So you ARE gay? I knew it!”
My mother would wait for opportunities to recommend other jobs I could pursue that had a secure future. She had given up on professions that the community would not look down upon and just wanted me to consider jobs that I could at least do in other countries. “How about learning to fix vashing machines? Vashing machines are alvays bereaking down. And if dere’s ever a revolution in the U.S., you can alvays fix vashing machines in Argentina.”
It wasn’t until we moved to Los Angeles in the early nineties that becoming a professional actor started to feel like a real option. It was also where I started to embrace my Persian culture. Los Angeles has the highest concentration of Iranians outside of Iran. Whereas in Marin running into an Iranian was a big deal, in L.A. it was common. When I first moved down I got a job in a Warehouse record store. (For any teenagers who happen to be reading this, there used to be actual stores where we bought our music. And back then we actually talked to a salesperson, who would give us a plastic bag without charging us ten cents for it. Those were wild times.) One day at the store I ran into an Iranian who was about the same age as me. I had learned from Marin that saying hello to a fellow Iranian could get you free things, or at least some hugs.
“Are you Iranian?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“So am I!” I held out my arms for an embrace.
“So?”
“Don’t you want to hug?”
“What are you, a freak?”
“No. I just figured since we’re both Iranians we should hug.”
“Look around you. The whole place is Iranian.”
“Wait. What’s your name?
“Tony.”
“An Iranian named Tony!”
“And that’s my friend Tony. And over there, that’s my other friend, Tony.”
It was as if I had finally come home.
Los Angeles, California
Moving to Los Angeles from Northern California was a culture shock to me, much as I imagine it would be for someone from the Midwest. Growing up in Northern California, it was ingrained in us to hate Los Angeles. We were the cool, down-to-earth, lovey-dovey Californians, and Angelenos were the superficial, over-tanned, annoying Californians. They were the hip place everyone in the world had heard of; we were the suburbs. They drove red Ferraris; we drove green Saabs (except for my dad, who, of course, drove the Rolls-Royce, throwing off this entire theory).
My family had moved into a high-rise on Wilshire Boulevard in Westwood, the Iranian Jeffersons. All of the high-rises on that boulevard were packed with Iranians. One family must have moved into a condo sometime in the 1950s, then word got out and one by one everyone came—cousins, neighbors, aunts, grandparents, roosters. It’s amazing how long a cousin can live out of a suitcase. They come for a week and stay for decades. Whenever you step out of an elevator in a Westwood high-rise your nose is instantly infused with smells of kebabs, saffron, and shambal
ileh, which are fenugreek leaves. They are an ingredient in a dish called ghormeh sabzi, which is a green broth that we put over white rice and one of the most delicious foods known to mankind. It’s the Iranian equivalent of gravy.
Persian food is generally some of the best food in the world. If you’ve never had it, find your nearest restaurant, order ghormeh sabzi, chicken kebabs, and the burnt rice at the bottom of the pan called tah deeg. (I know it sounds horrible, but it’s delicious.) And always—ALWAYS—check the bill at the end of the meal because they may try to inflate it. A rule of thumb: If the Persian waiter keeps calling you “my friend” during the meal, chances are you’re going to get overcharged. This is true when dealing with Middle Easterners in any transactional situation. As soon as they call you “my friend,” put your wallet away, back out slowly, then run to the most American establishment you can find—a Sbarro, or an all-you-can-eat Chinese food buffet. Remember, they are NOT your friend.
I had this happen to me when I visited Morocco years ago. Having grown up in Marin County, I had forgotten the “my friend” rule when a rug salesman invited me into his store to have an innocent look at his wares.
“My friend, come look at my rugs.”
“Wow, that’s so nice. Sure, I’ll come in.”
After a few minutes, I was checking out the rugs and thinking what a pleasant afternoon it had turned into.
“My friend, which ten rugs would you like to buy today?”
“Ten rugs? I’m sorry, my friend, but I live in a small room in my mother’s condo. The room already has a carpet, so I don’t really have anywhere to put any rugs.”
“No problem, my friend. Tell me—which three rugs you would like to buy?”
“You don’t understand, my friend. I don’t have any space. Not even for one rug.”
“My friend, you buy today for twelve hundred dollars. You sell tomorrow at a great profit in the United States. Just buy, my friend.”
He had doubled up on his “my friends,” which made the whole thing more confusing. How can you resist two “my friends” in one paragraph? I ended up buying three rugs. I had nowhere to put them, but I had convinced myself this stranger was giving me good financial advice because he had repeatedly called me his friend. What do you do with three Moroccan rugs when you’re living in a small bedroom in the corner of your mother’s condo? You try to sell them to your friends and family—that’s what you do! For the next six months, I drove around Los Angeles with a stack of Moroccan rugs in the trunk of my car. Anytime I was at a party, a picnic—any social gathering, really—and there was the slightest opening, I started pushing those rugs.
“My friend,” I would begin, “you look like you need a good rug. Come look in the trunk of my car. Which two would you like to buy today, my friend?”
Unfortunately, being from the old country, most of my relatives never fell for this trick.
“I am not your ferend. I am your modder. And you live in my house, so eh-stop terying to sell me your eh-stupid rugs.”
In the end I just gave the rugs away as gifts and made a whopping zero dollars on my investment. I would’ve done better if I’d invested in Lehman Brothers. “My friend, which three subprime loans would you like to buy?”
Grandpa’s Dirty Mouth
Along with being disingenuous salespeople, another thing you learn about Iranians is that we’re incredibly nosy. I would get into the building’s elevator and immediately the interrogations from the eighty-year-old neighbor women would commence.
“Are you Jobrani’s son?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“How much money does your fadder have?”
“Excuse me?”
“Is he vorth a million? Ten million? Vhat’s your best guess?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’ll take dat as ten million. Does your modder have fake boobs?”
“Excuse me?”
“I’ll take dat as a yes. Have you ever had an STD?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“I’ll take dat as a yes. How many people live in your house?”
“Are you with the census?”
“No, I’m just Persian.”
It was strange to live surrounded by so many Iranians. Growing up, most of my friends were white, so I had been the most Iranian kid on the block. In Los Angeles, suddenly I was inferior. The Iranians of LA were so entrenched in their culture that some of them didn’t even speak any English. I spoke Persian, but sometimes I would run into older Iranians who would use a word I didn’t understand. I’ve learned in life that if someone uses a word you don’t comprehend, you just need to nod confidently and agree: “I know exactly what you mean, my friend.”
In the 1990s in Los Angeles, one of the people I dealt with on a daily basis who spoke little English was my grandfather. He came to America in the eighties to live with us in Marin. When the family moved to Los Angeles, we packed him in the truck with the rest of our stuff. For him, it was as if he’d returned to Tehran, since everyone in Westwood spoke Persian and he could just walk around visiting families and spend hours reciting poetry with other old Iranians. He was between eighty and ninety years old. I give a range because we really didn’t know how old he was, nor did he. If you were born in Iran in the early 1900s and moved to America, you tended to lose track of your birth certificate. Not only did we not know how old he was, we didn’t know his birthday. We would just throw him into the mix every once in a while when it was another family member’s birthday. Often, he would end up having four or five birthdays a year, which is how he lived to be 273.
Grandpa was a great source of inspiration to all of us. He was retired but somehow kept himself busy each day. He awoke early and, like an old-timey gentleman, put on his three-piece suit and fedora hat. He would take the local bus to Santa Monica, where he would go shopping at the farmer’s market. He knew everyone and everyone knew him. He had Iranian friends, American friends, even Mexican friends. My sister and I followed him once to see what he did all day, sort of like a ride-along day with grandpa. He would get to the market and greet the Mexican guys selling oranges. They would greet him in Spanish and Grandpa would respond in Persian. Somehow they both knew what the other was saying, a mishmash of greetings that seemed to work. Grandpa would then come home, cook for the entire family, and clean all the dishes at the end of the night. In between all of his work he would read books and listen to the Persian radio. He was as busy as Ryan Seacrest—and 240 years older.
Grandpa also had a potty mouth, and not just any potty mouth. The man was a blasphemy artist. When he got worked up, he could spew such beautiful and ornate profanity, it was like watching Michelangelo paint. Older Persians living in the United States love to listen to Persian radio. For our family it was a great way to keep Grandpa informed of what was going on in the old country, but it also got him angry. He was a big critic of the Iranian regime and sometimes, as he was listening to a debate about the Iranian government and their human rights abuses, he would lose it. One moment, he was this gentle, proper, fedora-wearing poet. The next he would cuss out the regime, spewing crass words and spitting. You’d be in the other room and suddenly hear, “May a cow make love to the dead grandmothers of these Iranian politicians!”
I’d run toward the violence. “Grandpa, are you okay?”
“I’m okay, but this shitty government suppressing the people is not! I hope the entire regime gets molested by a herd of fishhook-cocked goats infested with herpes!”
And the worst part—as a good Persian grandson, I still had to give this man a good-night kiss. On the mouth.
The Community Will Talk
When I first moved to Los Angeles, I was in limbo in regards to my career. I had applied to Ph.D. programs in political science at universities around the country and was waiting for the results. At the time, my father was living in Iran and my mother was
in L.A. raising my two younger brothers. With my father gone, it was decided that I would be the man of the house. This is something you see in immigrant cultures, where the eldest son is expected to take over the duties of the father if the father is not around. For example, in 1941, the shah of Iran took over the throne when his father was sent into exile. He was only twenty-one. Unlike the United States, where we have a presidential election with numerous backup plans, Iran had a monarchy with a simple “man of the house” plan. Except with the shah it was more “man of the country.” Point being that immigrants expect the eldest son to run the family as soon as the father is out of the picture. If the eldest son leaves as well, then the next son takes over. If the next in line is a daughter, she has to get a sex change or at least dress in a suit. Persians take “man of the house” seriously.
My father moved to Iran in the early nineties for business. Being Iranian, he and my mom never spoke of separating or getting a divorce. I guess they figured that the law would eventually figure out that they really weren’t into each other anymore and automatically issue them an international divorce. This became a big deal years later when my mom, who finally came to her senses, officially filed for divorce in the United States. When my father found out he was livid. He had been away from her for years and admittedly had no romantic feelings, but he still could not believe she would do such a thing.
