Change is Good
Written by Romisa Shakeriniasar
Anchor Passage - 1210 - 1400; Lexile Current Word Count - 766
Boarding the plane to San Francisco, California with my maman and older sister, I said my final goodbyes to everyone and everything I had ever known and to Tehran -- the city I had called home since my birth.
As the plane readied for take-off, I felt my stomach flip with butterflies unprepared and afraid of the unknown and all I would encounter in this new chapter of my life. I didn't yet know what lay before me, but at that moment I felt all that we left behind: family, friends, and my parent's careers (my maman, a hairstylist at a professional salon, and my baba, a social worker at a War Veteran Hospital). I knew maman and baba traded everything for the hope of opportunities in America for my sister and me. When the plane began to descend, we gripped each other’s hands so tightly that I could feel our hearts beating in our palms. Our tears streamed down as the plane landed. We arrived.
My first breath of California air outside of San Francisco Airport smelled like freedom. The air here was crisp and earthy, different from the air back home in Tehran which was bitter with pollution. Here I smelled the trees, which I now know were the tall eucalyptus, along with hints of frying oil from fast food places nearby.
I felt tired and sick from the 23-hour plane ride – too anxious to sleep or eat. My heart raced and my brain was on fire with everything that was new before me: the way people dressed, the words they said, the music they played, the food they ate. I missed my home, I missed my baba, who would be joining us within the next month. But at that moment, the idea of being in this strange new place without him terrified me.
A month later, I found myself in a fifth-grade class. Everything was different from what I had known before. In America, students had individual desks as opposed to shared benches, they chose to wear what they wanted as opposed to covering themselves head to toe. My face flushed a rosy red when anyone spoke to me as I struggled to understand what they said. Were they making fun of me? Some adults and kids slowed down their speech, talked louder, stressed pronunciation, and used hand signals in hopes of somehow getting the message across. All I could do was sit through it. My parents had made too many sacrifices for me to simply give up.
I was always told in Tehran that if I wanted something to change, I needed to be the person to make it happen. So, I committed myself to learn the language. I stayed awake past my bedtime studying books that my aunt Soroor and my sister Mobina had given me that had one side in English and the other side in Farsi. I observed others, listening hard for words I knew, and trying to connect the dots between the ones I didn’t. I began to make progress. My teacher that year, Ms. Colyer, helped me by pulling up Google Translate to ensure I understood the content on my quizzes, tests, and homework assignments so that I could pass the class and graduate on time with my classmates.
I managed to learn to read, write, and speak English after only four months. I no longer stumbled over my words but I spoke in a thick accent formed around incorrect pronunciations and hatred of English vowels. But soon, my accent and my shaking voice began to fade away.
At a school-wide assembly later that year, I was shocked when Ms. Colyer announced that I was going to be given the district's Consistent Achievers award. I would receive a partial college scholarship to Dominican University of California, the school which I would later attend. At that moment I thought of the airplane ride from Tehran with so much unknown spread out before me and the vision that my parents had had for a better future and education for their children.
This April will be my 20th birthday marking the point in time where I have spent 10 years in Iran and 10 years in America. Beyond this point, I will have lived more in my future than in my past. My maman and baba attained their vision of educational progress for my sister and me. And my parents have found their own success in this new future by owning their own flower shop. Now I know that change can be good, even if you least expect it.
