certain four letter. To Firoozeh Dumas, the F word means years of discrimination. After living in America for 29 years, Dumas decided to write stories for her children about her life growing up Iranian in America. These stories were later published as Funny in Farsi: A Memoir Growing Up Iranian in America. At age nine Dumas moved from Iran to permanently live in America where she and her family were harassed for their difficult to pronounce names. Fed up with the harassment, Dumas decided to change her
In American society the “F” word has been deemed a cuss word, a dirty word. It’s a simple, four letter word that shouldn’t be used. In Firoozeh Dumas’s essay, “The ‘F Word’”, she give it a new light to a different “F” word with the same meaning in our culture. Firoozeh Dumas uses her Iranian background to help her criticise the American ability to adapt to different and unfamiliar cultures through humor, empathy, and metaphors. She begins by drawing people to read her essay merely with her title
details can hardly be considered anything else. It takes a steady hand and a meticulous focus to repair the damages and reinstate a sense of respect towards something degraded by time. Much like a painting conservator reviving a masterpiece, Firoozeh Dumas, an Iranian author and social commentator, peels back layers of accumulated stereotypes in order to critique the ways culturally ignorant American citizens respond to unfamiliar names. In “The F Word,” an excerpt from her memoir, she shares her
discrimination. According to the essay “The F Word” written by Firoozeh Dumas, she shows that one of the challenges for immigrants in America is their foreign names. Moreover, she also uses a lot of examples to indicate how this obstacle affects her life in different time period, such as her childhood, after graduating from university and getting married. Lastly, she chooses to use her original name and tries to respect her culture. However, Firoozeh Dumas utilizes a funny opening, circumstantial examples
one’s choice as to what he lets work its way out (Latifah 34). People have even made personal choices that affect their identity by changing their name. Just as Firoozeh Dumas describes in The “F Word”, “Thus I started sixth grade with my new, easy name and life became infinitely simpler” (Dumas 86). People made fun of Dumas’ name, Firoozeh, and thus made her want to change her name to fit in; she changed her identity. An identity is mainly comprised of personal choice. Before beginning the explanation
“The “F Word”” is a great story of Firoozeh Dumas who opens a wide window about the problems and struggles of immigrants in America. Firoozeh Dumas was born in Iran, and she moved back and forth between her native country and America. She finally stabilized her life in California with her family at the age of eleven. She attended the University of California at Berkeley and got married with a Frenchman over there. Firoozeh Dumas is an amazing writer that is well known by many fantastic writings such
Firoozeh Dumas’ home country of Iran was, both prior and during the Iranian Revolution, vastly different than the capitalistic and also increasingly xenophobic United States, which had both its benefits and drawbacks. During each period of time that Dumas lived in the U.S. she faced hatred on the basis of her nationality and religion, most notably during the Shah’s visit to Washington, D.C. where her entire family and other Iranian families were threatened and many even violently beaten (113).
Firoozeh Dumas’s essay “The "F” Word” is not what people think it would be about. When people hear the someone mention the “F” word all sorts of things pop into their head. Yet, Firoozeh Dumas twist the meaning of her title to something people wouldn't think when they heard the title. Dumas takes a stereotype in the title to grab our attention. People in the American Society judge people by more than just the color of their skin, for instance in Firoozeh’s case it was her name. Society has an
Firoozeh Dumas’s essay “The ‘F word”” is not about what people really think it is. When people hear the someone mention the “F” word all sorts of things pop into their head. Yet Firoozeh Dumas twist that. Dumas takes a stereotype in the title to grab our attention. In the article, Firoozeh Dumas tries to explain her experience as an immigrant from Iran to the US. Dumas tries to show how hard it was for her to come to America and live with her name. This blatantly apparent during her childhood because
The Iranian Revolution of 1979 had an enormous effect on many Iranians, including those who had immigrated to other places. But not the Dumas family. They were fortunate enough to have immigrated to America before that shift in the government. They were able to experience American hospitality in its truest form. Firoozeh Dumas, a published author of “Funny in Farsi”, wrote about her and her family’s experience in America before that turning point in Iranian history. In her book, she says “We remember
In American society the “F” word has been deemed a cuss word, a dirty word. It’s a simple, four letter word that shouldn’t be used. In Firoozeh Dumas’s essay, “The ‘F Word’”, she gives a new light to a different “F” word with the same context in our culture today with the help of her Iranian background. Firoozeh Dumas criticises the American ability to adapt to different and unfamiliar cultures through humor, empathy, and metaphors. She begins by drawing people to read her essay merely with her
brought up to support. Firoozeh Dumas, the girl in the book, and also the author of the essay, uses various rhetorical tactics to aid her audience in grasping the fact that being an immigrant in the U.S. can be a difficult life. To demonstrate her true feelings to the audience as an immigrant in the U.S., she uses similes, parallelism, and even her tone of humor. The first rhetorical device that is addressed countless times throughout the essay, is the use of similes. Firoozeh uses
ridiculed for their differences because they can be picked on for either “stealing jobs” or being segregated because they are not “American.” Firoozeh Dumas was ridiculed and segregated for being an Iranian immigrant. In the memoir, Funny In Farsi by Firoozeh Dumas, the poem, “Legal Alien” by Pat Mora, and political cartoon, “Great American
After a reader first notices the title of Firoozeh Dumas’ essay, “The F Word”, it may be hard to believe her writing is not about curse words. Her writing is about her experience moving to America and living in a society that is unwilling to accept outsiders. Immigrants face hardship when they come to the United States and she knew that before she moved. But she never thought living with a foreign name would be so challenging. Dumas brings light to those difficulties and how she dealt with them through
subject. Just the mere mentioning of them can cause a furor. Through all this controversy immigrants are not treated as citizens in America. Americans believe they do not belong. In the poem “Legal Alien” by Pat Mora, the memoir Funny in Farsi by Firoozeh Dumas, the historical document “Executive Order 9066” by Franklin D. Roosevelt, and the NPR interview “Breaking Down the Complexities of U.S. Migration Law” by Michel Martin and Karen Tumlin immigrants are not treated as they should be. In the eyes
have failed to realise clearly what their goal is and what they needed to reach it. You must not make hasty, unsure decisions. Realisation involves careful investigation. Step 2 – Confidence “Confidence is the door to success” (Mary O’Hare Dumas). If you do not have confidence in your goal and believe you can reach it, you will fail before you even begin. To achieve your goal you are going to need to depend on other people, whether it is for funding or moral support. If you do not show confidence
the plains of Dumas, Texas with enough power and technology to plow fifteen rows at one time. While just overseas in Pakistan a farmer works to plow one row in his field with the help of his oxen. Both farmers come home late at night, one just the same as the other, but the work they have accomplished for the day will be drastically different. The farmer in Pakistan farms 2.5 acres of land hoping to use what he harvests for feeding his family and his village. The farmer in Dumas farms 500 acres
was set. In 1943, he and Emile Gagnan developed the first regulated compressed-air breathing device for sustained, unencumbered diving. After World War II, he created and organized, in conjunction with Commander Philippe Tailliez and Frédéric Dumas, an underwater research unit to carry out technical experiments and laboratory studies in diving. In 1950 he founded "Campagne Oceanographique Francaise". Also, in the same year, Captain Cousteau acquired Calypso, a retired minesweeper of American
he developed an ambition to become a teacher. While still in his teens, he went to Paris to study in a famous school called Lyce St. Louis. During his studies to become a teacher, he was fascinated by a chemistry professor, Monsieur Jean-Baptist Dumas. He wrote home excitedly about these lectures, and decided that he wanted to learn to teach chemistry and physics, just like his favorite professor. In 1847 he earned a doctorate at the Ecole Normale in Paris, with a focus on both physics and chemistry
At Risk” stated that American children had fallen behind in such subjects as math and science. Thus came the advent of education’s increased focus on literacy and numeracy, accountability and academic standards. These high standards, according to Dumas (2000), are the most significant trend in schools today. These new standards seem to be focusing more on both accountability and back to basics. As a math teacher I can be delighted by this focus. However, as a potential administrator, I realize