My Shadow Is My Skin: Voices from the Iranian Diaspora

Published by University of Texas Press 2020

My Shadow Is My Skin

Voices from the Iranian Diaspora

Edited by: Katherine Whitney and Leila Emery

https://doi.org/10.7560/320273

Overview
Contents

About this book

The Iranian revolution of 1979 launched a vast, global diaspora, with many Iranians establishing new lives in the United States. In the four decades since, the diaspora has expanded to include not only those who emigrated immediately after the revolution but also their American-born children, more recent immigrants, and people who married into Iranian families, all of whom carry their own stories of trauma, triumph, adversity, and belonging that reflect varied and nuanced perspectives on what it means to be Iranian or Iranian American. The essays in My Shadow Is My Skin are these stories.

This collection brings together thirty-two authors, both established and emerging, whose writing captures the diversity of Iranian diasporic experiences. Reflecting on the Iranian American experience over the past forty years and shedding new light on themes of identity, duality, and alienation in twenty-first-century America, the authors present personal narratives of immigration, sexuality, marginalization, marriage, and religion that offer an antidote to the news media’s often superficial portrayals of Iran and the people who have a connection to it. My Shadow Is My Skin illuminates a community that rarely gets to tell its own story.

Author / Editor information

Katherine Whitney first wrote on the Iranian diaspora in the anthology Because I Said So: 33 Mothers Write About Children, Sex, Men, Aging, Faith, Race & Themselves. She graduated from Duke University and received an MA in Museum Studies from John F. Kennedy University.

Leila Emery is a writer and editor whose work has appeared in Michigan Quarterly Review, Parentheses Journal, Matter, and Lines+Stars. She is a graduate of Smith College and holds an MA in creative writing from Johns Hopkins University.

Reviews

The narratives in this collection go a long way toward making Iranian American immigrants visible. Offering familiar stories with a distinctive flavor, My Shadow Is My Skin deftly explores their mixed feelings of pride and love, and of dislocation and criticism, for both the lost ancestral homeland and the new world, providing an important addition to our ever-unfolding understanding of American immigrant experiences.

— Washington Post

[My Shadow Is My Skin] offers a powerful antidote to the reductive images by giving voice to a chorus of experiences by Iranian American writers. These are vivid and powerful human stories told by a diverse collection of writers who span a range of immigration experiences...At a time when we need to see Iranian Americans are indeed here, and that their stories matter, we now have a wonderful new collection that offers more nuanced and powerful images than those being continuously recycled in the headlines.

— The Rumpus

My Shadow is My Skin, beautifully and aptly named, presents a collection of incredibly personal, sometimes painful stories. With a range of experiences and topics, such as religion, sexuality, racism, and war, the essays provide a deeper look at a community often misunderstood by our peers, and misrepresented by the country we call home. The Iranian-American story is long and complex, with intermarriage, assimilation, and different waves of immigration, there are so many stories to tell. This anthology offers a variety of stories that glimpse at the rich tapestry of this experience.

— National Iranian American Council

The insight provided by most of [the essays in My Shadow is My Skin] would certainly be eye-opening to non-immigrants. Then, of course, there are those whose own experience might be reflected in these writings which doubtless would find some solace in the knowledge that they did not struggle alone. All in all, through noble endeavors such as the compiling of this collection, one can say it is a good time to be an Iranian in exile.

— Peyk Magazine

[My Shadow Is My Skin] boasts a uniquely heterogenous collection of diasporic writing.

— Iranian Studies

The essays in this moving and impressive collection capture the many facets of the Iranian diasporic experience with an honesty that feels as if the writers have been treasuring these stories for years and are now giving us the welcome gift of beautiful and surprising release. My Shadow is My Skin captures not just the immense loss and longing that can accompany immigration and cultural displacement but also the unexpected empowerment that hyphenation and living between worlds can build. Bold, expansive, and wise –this collection will break your heart and fill you with immense hope.

— Marjan Kamali, author of The Stationery Shop

Emotionally raw, honest, often funny and heartbreaking, these are stories that will linger with you long after you’ve read them. My Shadow Is My Skin is a testament to what binds us as Iranian-Americans, but also a poignant reminder that every one of our experiences are distinctly personal.

— Sara Saedi, author of Americanized: Rebel Without a Green Card

This collection includes writings by first-generation Iranian immigrants to the United States, second-generation immigrants, or diasporic Iranians, several of whom have one American parent, as well as entries by American spouses of Iranian immigrants. It thus allows for a more expansive and inclusive understanding of what it means to be Iranian American or a diasporic Iranian living in the United States. This diversity of voices is one of the strengths of the book; the time for this more generous and capacious understanding of diasporic Iranian identity is long overdue and most certainly welcome.

— Nima Naghibi, author of Women Write Iran: Nostalgia and Human Rights from the Diaspora

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Foreword Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Introduction Publicly Available Download PDF	xiii
Light/Shadow
The Summer I Disappeared Jasmin Darznik Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	3
Sacrifices Sacrifices Iraj Isaac Rahmim Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	11
Shadow Nation Cyrus M. Copeland Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	25
Two Minutes to Midnight Daniel Rafinejad Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	28
When We Were Lions Mehdi Tavana Okasi Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	41
Fortune-Tellers Dena Afrasiabi Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	52
Silkscreen Omid Fallahazad Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	57
Hookah, Once upon a Time Poupeh Missaghi Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	74
Think of the Trees Leila Emery Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	78
Pushing the Boundaries Dena Rod Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	82
Uninvited Guest Roia Ferrazares Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	91
Coding/Decoding
The Name on My Coffee Cup Saïd Sayrafiezadeh Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	97
Negotiating Memories Amy Malek Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	102
In Praise of Big Noses Persis Karim Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	112
Transmutations of/by Language Raha Namy Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	120
Gilad, My Enemy Salar Abdoh Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	132
Two Countries, One Divided Self Roger Sedarat Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	138
Mothering across the Cultural Divide Katherine Whitney Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	147
My Mom Killed Michael Jackson Shokoofeh Rajabzadeh Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	163
Am I an Immigrant? Roxanne Varzi Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	174
1,916 Days Mandana Chaffa Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	177
Culture beyond Language Leyla Farzaneh Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	182
Memory/Longing
Forget Me Not Shideh Etaat Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	187
Errand Babak Elahi Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	191
The Color of the Bricks Farnaz Fatemi Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	202
Renounce and Abjure All Allegiance Renata Khoshroo Louwers Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	207
Learning Farsi Darius Atefat-Peckham Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	217
Delam Tang Shodeh Shireen Day Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	227
Walking with Zahra Layla Maryam Razavi Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	245
Halva Nazanine Attaran Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	257
Her Orange-Blossom Tea Maryam Atai Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	262
The Iranians of Mercer Island Siamak Vossoughi Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	264
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	269
Contributors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	271

Language: English
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 276

eBook

Published: March 16, 2020
ISBN: 9781477320358