My inbox is flooded with e-mails from CNN.com, updating me on Irans most recent act of evil and military strategies President Bush will deploy if such acts dont stop. From the comfort of my Park Avenue office I cringe, because both countries are my home. As a 27-year-old recent graduate of St. Johns Law School, I was born in Seattle and raised in California, but Iran is the soil of my ancestry.
I am a dual citizen, yet no one is speaking on my behalf.
Like George Bush, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad rules a nation that doesnt share his views, is appalled by his politics like threatening to use nuclear technology to bully the West and embarrassed to be associated with such backward mentality, as when he questioned the Holocaust.
Ahmadinejad has become to Iran what the Bush administration is to the United States: bad publicity. As if apologizing to foreigners for the war in Iraq wasnt enough, now Im compelled to ask forgiveness on Irans behalf as well. Although my views dont mirror those of either governments, I am constantly defending myself as an Iranian-American alienated by both lands.
Every time I meet someone, I get, Neelou? What an exotic name. Where are you from? It used to be a great conversation topic. Now I say Beverly Hills. If I tell the truth, people look at me like I have two heads, like their only perception of a Persian woman is pictures theyve seen of women draped in black from head to toe. Wrong country!
The medias portrayal of my people is disillusioning. They falsely depict Iran as a state of religious zealots screaming death to America. In fact, my cousins who live in Tehran love Western culture. During my visit last January, they traipsed about shopping in cropped Diesel jeans and stilettos, while babbling on their cells, a tiny scarf barely covering their highlighted coifs.
It doesnt matter that the United States is ignorant about modern Persian culture. What matters is that we hone in on the ramblings of Irans fanatical leader. We ignore the atrocities committed against a nation suffocating under a regime that doesnt represent its people.
What vexes me is an Iranian economy in dire straits, without enough jobs to employ the overpopulated region, where only the rich can afford healthcare. I am enraged that women are forced to wear headscarves and ride in the backs of buses, disgusted that 14-year-olds from the provinces sell their bodies to feed their destitute families while government officials drive $80,000 Benzs.
While everyones obsessing over Tom and Katies baby, Suri, a 6-year-old sharing the same name, who I met volunteering at an outreach program in Tehran, is selling hair clips.
She wears plastic slippers, even in the snow. Suri cannot attend school because illegitimate children arent recognized as Iranian citizens. Her baby brother, who suffers from a chronic bronchial infection, will share the same fate. These are the issues. Real people caught in a political crossfire are what matter, not nuclear research.
Neelou Malekpour, a dual citizen of the United States and Iran, currently lives in Manhattan.
