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    Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America
    Unavailable
    Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America
    Unavailable
    Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America
    Ebook224 pages3 hours

    Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America

    By Firoozeh Dumas

    3.5/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Finalist for the PEN/USA Award in Creative Nonfiction, the Thurber Prize for American Humor, and the Audie Award in Biography/Memoir

    This Random House Reader’s Circle edition includes a reading group guide and a conversation between Firoozeh Dumas and Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner!

    “Remarkable . . . told with wry humor shorn of sentimentality . . . In the end, what sticks with the reader is an exuberant immigrant embrace of America.”—San Francisco Chronicle

    In 1972, when she was seven, Firoozeh Dumas and her family moved from Iran to Southern California, arriving with no firsthand knowledge of this country beyond her father’s glowing memories of his graduate school years here. More family soon followed, and the clan has been here ever since.

    Funny in Farsi chronicles the American journey of Dumas’s wonderfully engaging family: her engineer father, a sweetly quixotic dreamer who first sought riches on Bowling for Dollars and in Las Vegas, and later lost his job during the Iranian revolution; her elegant mother, who never fully mastered English (nor cared to); her uncle, who combated the effects of American fast food with an army of miraculous American weight-loss gadgets; and Firoozeh herself, who as a girl changed her name to Julie, and who encountered a second wave of culture shock when she met and married a Frenchman, becoming part of a one-couple melting pot.

    In a series of deftly drawn scenes, we watch the family grapple with American English (hot dogs and hush puppies?—a complete mystery), American traditions (Thanksgiving turkey?—an even greater mystery, since it tastes like nothing), and American culture (Firoozeh’s parents laugh uproariously at Bob Hope on television, although they don’t get the jokes even when she translates them into Farsi).

    Above all, this is an unforgettable story of identity, discovery, and the power of family love. It is a book that will leave us all laughing—without an accent.

    Praise for Funny in Farsi
     
    “Heartfelt and hilarious—in any language.”—Glamour
     
    “A joyful success.”—Newsday
     
    “What’s charming beyond the humor of this memoir is that it remains affectionate even in the weakest, most tenuous moments for the culture. It’s the brilliance of true sophistication at work.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review
     
    “Often hilarious, always interesting . . . Like the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding, this book describes with humor the intersection and overlapping of two cultures.”—The Providence Journal
     
    “A humorous and introspective chronicle of a life filled with love—of family, country, and heritage.”—Jimmy Carter
     
    “Delightfully refreshing.”—Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
     
    “[Funny in Farsi] brings us closer to discovering what it means to be an American.”—San Jose Mercury News
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRandom House Publishing Group
    Release dateDec 18, 2007
    ISBN9780307430991
    Unavailable
    Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America
    Author

    Firoozeh Dumas

    New York Times bestselling author Firoozeh Dumas was born in Abadan, Iran, and moved to Whittier, California at the age of seven. After a two-year stay, she and her family moved back to Iran and lived in Ahvaz and Tehran. Two years later, they moved back to Whittier, then to Newport Beach. She lives in Munich, Germany, with her husband and three children.

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    Reviews for Funny in Farsi

    3.5/5

    375 ratings32 reviews

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    • 3/5
      I enjoyed this book despite a couple of moments when the author seems a bit full of herself and definitely cheesy! What I enjoyed is the message that not all immigrant families are poor and fleeing a disaster: for some, the US is a move for work, just like other families. Some good chapters to excerpt include "A Dozen Key Chains", "It's All Relatives" and "Judges Paid Off"
    • 4/5
      Funny in Farsi is a memoir by a woman who grew up in both Iran and the United States. Her family moved to the United States in 1972, when Firoozeh Dumas was seven years old. Neither she or her mother spoke any English, although her father had some experience with the country from graduate school. After two years, they moved back to Iran, but later returned to the United States. More family members followed until almost all of the family was living in California. Funny in Farsi is a collection of antecedents and stories about Firoozeh Dumas’s life and family.The best thing about Funny in Farsi is that true to the title, it’s hilarious. I was laughing out loud at many parts and got some strange looks from people around me. One of my favorite parts was the chapter where she talked about her uncle, who was visiting them from Iran. While in America, he developed a taste for fast food. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it wasn’t too long before the clothes he brought with him no longer fit. When it became time for him to go back to Iran, he decided to lose weight. His method? Call the numbers on TV adds promising quick weight loss. This resulted in him being sent a full body reflective suit which he was supposed to wear before meals. He decided that it would be far more effective to wear the suit all day long.While most of the book is funny, there are a few more sobering sections, mostly relating to the Iranian Revolution. When her family first came to the United States, she found Americans overwhelmingly friendly and welcoming. Then the hostage crisis happened. Overnight, her father lost his job and anti-Iranian bumper stickers began appearing.“Throughout his job ordeal, my father never complained. He remained an Iranian who loved his native country but who also believed in American ideals. He only said how sad it was that people so easily hate an entire population simply because of the actions of a few. And what a waste it is to hate, he always said. What a waste.”Firoozeh Dumas’s warmth and humor shine on every page of Funny in Farsi. I loved reading it and would highly recommend it.Originally posted on The Illustrated Page.
    • 4/5
      A fun little book. A memoir told with humor and love.
      Dumas's immigrant experiences are somewhat universal, except possibly for the outright hatred of Iranians in the US after the hostage crisis. Most of her stories are thankfully before that period when Americans were open and friendly to them and I'm glad.
      As with most immigrants, they love America so much because they do not take our abundance and freedoms for granted.
    • 4/5
      A sweet memoir that is a very enjoyable read. Read by the author herself, Firoozeh tells stories of her family who immigrated to Southern California in the 1970's. Full of humor and good spirit, highly recommended.
    • 5/5
      Funny in Farsi is also Funny in English, I laughed out loud several times (I don't usually do that when reading) and silently chuckled to myself at least once a page. This was a light and enjoyable read that I would recommend to everyone. It only took me two days of casual reading so it's well within everyone's capability to get through. It offered some unique comparisons of life in pre-revolutionary Iran (in which author Firoozeh Dumas grew up) and the 70's-80's of America. I found it interesting to find how much of her post Iranian revolution American immigrant experience matched with the experiences post 9/11 being married to a Muslim immigrant and having converted to Islam. I wonder if Iranian immigrants who came around the same time feel as though they have had to live through such discrimination twice (although 9/11's impact has been much longer lasting).I love the humorous approach she takes to her memoir. Many of the experiences remind me of my own similar experiences dealing with my immigrant husband and his family... her father funnily enough reminds me quite a bit of my own husband and several stories of her father could have been almost word for word describing experiences with my Egyptian husband 30-40 years later. In many ways I think much the experiences could have been had by any family who immigrates to the US... or maybe it's just any Middle Eastern family, I guess I don't really have too many personal examples to go on.While I really enjoyed reading this book and found it quite humorous... it also made me sad. Not that the content was sad in itself but that certain aspects were saddening to me as an American Muslim parent. It just makes me feel sad for those who are Muslim but don't really take Islam seriously enough in their own lives. It's in no way meant as a comment to judge the author or her family as Muslims but rather a reminder to myself about raising my own children as good practicing Muslims.My only complaint about the book is that it wasn't longer since I thought there were a lot of parts that could have been expanded but then it wouldn't have been as quick and light a read I suppose...
    • 3/5
      I read this book while writing my own memoir, Red Eggs and Good Luck, which won the Mary Tanenbaum Award for creative nonfiction but has not but published in its entirety.
    • 4/5
      Thoroughly engaging audiobook. While Dumas does address some more serious topics surrounding her family's immigration to the United States, she does so with good humor, reasonable self-deprecation, and affection for her family. I loved the anecdotal nature of the book--it felt like she was sitting there with me telling me these stories.

      ********
      Read Harder: Story by immigrant or with central immigration theme
    • 4/5
      I got this when it was an Audible “daily deal” and had modest expectations, so I was delighted when it turned to to be really enjoyable! A collection of discrete stories, these are funny, sweet, and shamelessly heartwarming. In the audio book version, Dumas reads her memoir of growing up in a large, close-knit extended Iranian family, both in the U.S. and in Iran, with great warmth and charm. Most of the stories are focused on her family – her parents, siblings, cousins, uncles and aunts – and many involve the differences between Iranian and American culture, always handled with a light touch. Firoozeh's family first lived in the U.S. first before the Iranian hostage crisis and, despite the breezy tone of the book she does convey the sudden change in the way that ordinary immigrant families were treated as a result of international events. Interesting and entertaining – three and a half stars.
    • 4/5
      Sharing experiences from childhood to adulthood, Faroozeh recognizes how different Iranian culture is to US typical culture and makes us smile at the same time. We are all the same beneath.
    • 5/5
      Funny in Farsi is an enjoyable and quick read. Reading Firoozeh's experiences in the States before and after the revolution made for an interesting contrast to the story outlined in Persiopolis 1 & 2. Firoozeh's less politically active parents probably sheltered her from the worst of the events after the coup so her memoir is more focused on the cultural gaffs that everyone makes. My favorite chapter has to be the one with the beauty contest for Miss Bahamas and it made for a perfect segue from the last book I read, A Salty Piece of Land.
    • 4/5
      I loved this book. It was very funny, but still revealing a lot about Iranians and their lifestyle. This family's commitment to other family members made me quite jealous, but it was still very refreshing to read about.
    • 4/5
      My high school aged daughter had to read this book this year for her English class. When she first brought the class syllabus home, I noticed that I had read most of her required reading myself and generally enjoyed it. This title, though, was one of the few I hadn't already read although I certainly owned it. So I made a point of pulling it off my shelf and reading it before my daughter did. Dumas' memoir about being Iranian in America, growing up as not one thing or another but a sort of hybrid who feels out of place is funny and entertaining but thoughtful and insightful as well. Dumas' family emigrated to the US for her father's engineering job in the early 1970s, when very few people in the US had heard of the Middle Eastern country. Told in short, funny, self-contained chapters, Dumas captures the slightly out of kilter life of an immigrant and the way that the US perception of Iranians changed after the Iranian hostage crisis and the Iranian Revolution. She focuses on life within her family, how her parents adapted (or didn't) to their new home, the cultural misunderstandings, and the ways in which they maintained ties to their familiar culture even half a world away. Covering many years, from her childhood to young adulthood and her eventual marriage to a Frenchman, Dumas' brief chapters showcase her lovable and quirky family, the kindness and the suspicion she encountered as an Iranian, and the entertaining, oftentimes self-deprecating, results of culture clash. This slight memoir is light, filled with a sense of humor, and is, as the title promises, truly funny. Dumas recounts her relatives' quirky foibles and the ways in which they try to adjust to American culture. She recounts her memories with love and her stories highlight a universality amongst human beings no matter which part of the world they hail from and where the wind takes them. She is forgiving of the ignorance of people about her homeland and the clueless way that some people treat immigrants. Many of the chapters offer brief glimpses into life in pre-revolutionary Iran as compared to life in the US and Dumas has managed to strike a nice balance between the good and positive in each place even as she acknowledges imperfections and prejudices, offering only brief nods to the politics of the day then and now. A warm, endearing, and affectionately written memoir, this is a delightful look at difference, ethnicity, and culture.
    • 3/5
      When my book club voted for this book to be on our list for this year I was excited: it was definitely different from our usual fare and it was a promise of a peek into a new cultural experience, which is always something I'm interested in (since I myself am an immigrant other immigrant experiences are something I'm curious about). Besides, the title has the word "Funny" in it, I expected humor and lots of it.The book started out well enough and at first I could see myself finishing it, but then it took a turn for the worse. It is structured as a series of vignettes covering particular subjects such as doing touristy things in America, kindness of strangers, American food, camp experience, etc. They're not done in any kind of chronological order and one chapter can jump from childhood to adulthood in a paragraph or two. This made it difficult for me to enjoy the experience because I couldn't help but feel unfocused and scattered all over the author's life. The promised humor was there but it was mild and didn't make me chuckle even once. I got through about a third of the book and realized that I was having an OK experience with it but I didn't really care one way or another what else the author was going to talk about. My main takeaway at that point was that she didn't particularly feel like she belonged in either her family because she grew up very Americanized nor in American society because of her name, appearance and heritage, but she was putting a brave face on it. I also think she possibly was hoping that this book would build a bridge of sorts between the cultures, show the Western world that Iranians are not all terrorists and the Persian world that all Americans don't hate them just because they're Muslim. The fact that this book was written and published after the 9/11 makes this idea plausible for me.I really wanted to like this book but once I realized it didn't really work for me I set it aside. Life is too short for OK books, especially if they're not required reading (I'm looking at you, Manon Lescaut and Bartleby the Scrivener), even if intentionally or not they make "the other" seem not quite so alien.
    • 5/5
      I really loved Funny in Farsi. In book club NO ONE liked the book but me it sounds like. One woman said it was b'c she was writing for a white audience. WHAT? I have met people who are funny in a self depracting way and they are FUNNY. They are not doing it for the audience they are doing it b'c that is what they know how to do best. Funny in Farsi was funny b'c she told stories that are real and frankly that is why they are humourous. I know folks who write like that and I laugh out loud every time.
    • 2/5
      A light easy read of a series of columns previously published about growing up Iranian in America. For me not too humorous, maybe the difference is in the telling. She tells mostly of how things happened to her and her family.
    • 4/5
      With nonfiction like this, who needs fiction? Very funny, but a lot of insights into cross cultural issues.
    • 5/5
      This witty memoir is the perfect `pick me up' prescription. The writing is refreshing, clean, and interestingly upbeat. The humor above all of course, absolutely carries this memoir, so much so that I found the hurdling back and forth over events a smooth blend of perspectives. From California 1972, to E-ron (did I pronounce Iran right?), back to California 1972 and then California 1976, to the one day in college, then the time when Kazem first came to America, and then mention of Dumas's children and celebrating Christmas, and back to the wedding...man, Funny in Farsi must be read to experience Dumas's delicate blend of sarcasm and humor, and how she smoothly uses it to pull this nebulous mix together. Gourmet style I'll tell you... like the way her family prepared meals when they were in Iran. (On a side note: One of the biggest universal teases I know of in American culture and that's the teasing about one's name.) Beautiful, and delectably tasty.
    • 3/5
      Lighter than I expected, but still a fun read.
    • 4/5
      Book is available through download and is a Kindle book as well. Dumas has also written Laughing Without an Accent: Adventures of a Global Citizen.
    • 4/5
      This short memoir isn't earth shattering, life changing, a book to be remembered and cherished forever, or any of the other hyperbole common on dust jackets. It is an entertaining, funny, sometimes insightful, and sometimes sad view of one Iranian living with her family in both American and Iran, pre- and post-9/11. It is a story of extended family who can be both loving and irritating. Dumas writes well and with humor. She writes about the ignorance of most Americans about Iran before 9/11, and the hatred of many Americans toward all Iranians after. She doesn't do it in a hateful way, just through the eyes of someone who has been viewed with stereotypes and misconceptions by people who don't know her. All in all, this book is a very good read.
    • 3/5
      One of the best things I can say about this book is that it was much too short. It's another free book that I downloaded in PDF format, and after having success reading a PDF file on my Sony reader, I put this one on there as well. It's sad, but PDF files and electronic book readers are not a perfect combination, so there were some annoyances with the formatting, but those did not distract from my enjoyment of this book. I hear that Mrs. Dumas has another book out (or coming out soon) and I look forward to reading it.
    • 2/5
      Rather than a conventional memoir, this is a collection of stories from the author's life. The stories are not presented chronologically, but jump back and forth in time, and many times the same intro is used to begin several stories. In one case, the exact same line is used (the one about her father’s idea of eating out is going to his sister's for dinner), which makes me wonder if these were originally published as completely separate stories that were never meant to be in the same collection.Despite its title, it's not very funny, nor is there very much in this book about Farsi. Basically, it's any immigrant's tale about adjusting to a new country and new culture. If you have no experience (through real life or through books) of the immigrant experience or of Iranian culture and history this may be a decent enough read, but otherwise it won't really tell you anything new - especially the parts that are neither about immigration or Iran (like short snippet about the author spending Bastille Day in Paris with the concierge of her apartment).There are a few amusing parts and a few parts where Dumas describes events with real emotion that are good (like her wedding description), but in all I found her stories shallow snippets of her family's (mainly her father's) quirks and habits, rather than an exploration of the Iranian immigration experience in America, like the book's cover promises. Whoever came up with the title did Ms. Dumas a rather big disservice.
    • 4/5
      In her memoir, Funny in Farsi, author Firoozeh Dumas uses humor and candor to introduce her family to readers and describe the language and cultural difficulties that come with moving to a new country. Originally from Iran, Dumas moved to the United States at age seven. It was 1972, a time before many Americans had ever heard of Iran, giving the author a much different experience in her first years in California than perhaps is felt by Middle Easterners immigrating to the United States today.Leaving politics out of her essays for the most part, Dumas is able to endear her family and her culture to readers. She also is able to help us see how the political climate in the Middle East has effected immigrants and American attitudes toward them.Dumas also has a refreshing look at things I take for granted as both a Californian and an American. The essays from her younger years are filled with a child's sense of wonder and discovery, as well as mischievousness. For instance, when Dumas loses track of her family in Disneyland, she goes to the Lost and Found and waits for her parents to figure out that's where they should go to look for her. When they arrive she realizes her father will do just about anything for her because he's so glad to have not lost her forever, which she uses to her advantage to get all the goodies and balloons her penny-pinching father normally wouldn't allow.I thought her descriptions of cultural differences were also very well done. At one point she describes her father's love of visiting Costco on "sample day" because of all of the free food he can get. Her father also insists on trying all of the latest boxed or frozen foods (despite the belly aches they get from it) because they are so different from what they would find in Iran.Culture becomes a theme throughout the book as she grows older, spends time in France and eventually marries a Frenchman. As always, I loved reading about someone else's time in Paris. It always makes me feel better about my own experience because it confirms my belief that I'm not the only person ever to have a difficult time with Parisians.All in all I really enjoyed this book. Dumas' writing style is fun and quick, and her descriptions of her family's quirks will take you back to your own teenage years.
    • 4/5
      I have read 198/198. "Funny in Farsi, A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian In American" is about an Iranian girl named Firoozeh and her challenges she experiences while growing up in California. She meets new people of different cultures but has not been getting along with them frequently. Although, Firoozeh made many mistakes and had numerous amounts of confusion, she eventually learned from her mistakes. In my opinion, Firoozeh and her father are the most important characters from the book. Firoozeh, being the main character of the story, has changed a lot throughout her early years in America and she still is, now, as an adult. When she came to America Firoozeh didn’t know much about America and only depended on her father, being educated in America, like the rest of the family. However she found out that most of what her father had said about America was incorrect so she changed a lot this way. The only thing I can relate to this book is about the family culture because it has very similar customs like mine. The only thing I didn’t like about this book is that the author wrote down things that repeated the kind of alienation to her a lot. I would recommend this book to people who like to read about a different culture because that is what the whole story is about.
    • 3/5
      I have read 240/240 pages in this book. This is a story about the author Firoozeh Dumas and how she lives her new life in America. Her family has moved down to Southern California from their old country of Iran. The main character is Firoozeh and she is a person who is scared at first but is then trying to overcome all the negative things she is trying to get by from. I can relate that having a new start is really scary but if you think more on the positive side of it then you will enjoy anything. I didn't really some of the corny humor in the book. I would recommend this to an 8th or 9th grader. I think Penolope Cruz should be the character
    • 3/5
      It was better then I thought it was going to be. It is about Firoozeh's trip from Iran to America and her struggles here in America with herself, her family, her heritage, and people in America. I tells some stories about her childhood and the things that stood out to her the most. It also says a little bit about the things that still happen now that she is an adult with a family.
    • 4/5
      This book was a wonderful read! This amazing woman has a voice that is just hillarious! She could describe making a pasta salad and it would be a scream. Instead, what she chose to focus her wit on was her experience as an Iranian immigrant to the United States. In this little book she turned her gaze on her family and her childhood experience and it felt to me that I got to know all of her extended family and got to experience her life and to laugh with her as she grew up into a woman in a new world.
    • 3/5
      Memoir, Writing is average. Stories are funny and interesting. Good story about immigrating to America from Iran and the difficulties which arose. Also, compared cultures between American and Iran. For example, Iran does not celebrate Christmas.
    • 3/5
      Engaging memoir of a young girl growing up in Iran and America. From humorous anecdotes about language difficulties to the problems following 9/11, this book's light-hearted style will draw you in and show you a slice of a culture you may have missed.
    • 4/5
      This book was cute. And that is about the accurate word for it. I didn't find it all that original. The stories were a bit short and didn't have a whole lot of substance to them. Granted, for Dumas her English wasn't her first language, so it's no surprise the prose is pretty simple. The stories were amusing and it kept me vaguely entertained.