Page 12 of Choke

“Oh!” she squeals as she claps her hand like an excited child. “I’ve always wanted to go to Scotland.”

I tip the rim of my Yankees ball cap toward her. “It rains a lot.”

I step away from the counter before the girl can ask me any more monotonous questions. Her shrill voice is a nuisance and distracts me from my pretty girl.

Three steps. That’s all it would take to sit at the table across from her. My Mona.

Some views are so striking that you feel like the wind has been knocked from your lungs. But nothing has the same magnitude as Mona brushing strands of her dark hair from her cheeks, her face scrunched in concentration. She is a vision. A transcendent work of art with the ability to inspire humanity into something better.

“Mona,” a chipper voice calls.

Mona's radiant smile appears as she waves to her friend, Ari. Will she smile at me with the same warmth and radiance one day? “Hey, Ari.”

Ari thumbs the books on the table and smiles. “You’re the only person I know who would spend a perfectly sunny Saturday afternoon couped up in a dimly lit coffee shop.”

Mona shrugs. “I’m having a few issues with the grammar and thought some practice couldn’t hurt. My brother-in-law learned Persian in his teens and is now fluent. He always tells me to practice more. If we went back to Iran, he could probably get by in small remote villages, while I’d have to get by around with the English speakers in Theran.”

Ari pulls out a chair and sits. “You planning on visiting Iran soon?”

A pang hits my chest at Mona’s somber expression. Her green eyes turn wistful as she stares out the window. “As much as I want to, I don’t think that will be happening.” She laughs bitterly. “It’s funny, you know. When I was younger, I had no desire to form any attachment to the country with all its pain, religious persecution, death, and brutality. I wanted to put it aside. I was ashamed of Iran and everything about it. But as I get older, I realize Iran’s more than the perception displayed in western media. Iran is so much more than the hostage crisis and the bullshit religious theocracy. Being Iranian is more than a thirty-second sound clip from a middle-aged man who couldn’t even point to the country on a map. But being Iranian ishard, both in Iran and in the diaspora. Being Iranian is beauty wrapped in brutality. Being Iranian means culture, art, science, and injustice. Being Iranian means being proud, resilient, and scared.”

Ari dabbed a napkin under her eyes. “Wow, Mona, that’s kinda beautiful. Sad, but beautiful.”

"It’s too bad it took me so long to see the beauty of it all. I was just glad I didn’t have to grow up there. I saw so many heartbreaking things in Iran. That trauma took over, you know? I wanted to forget it was real. I told people I was Italian or Greek when they questioned my ethnicity, but now, I’d do anything to connect with that land and its people again.”

Mona casts her eyes down and concentrates on a line in her book. “It would have meant so much to my mom to see this. She said it was okay when I rejected my culture, but I know it hurt her. My mom had so much love for Iran. If it weren’t for my siblings and me, she probably wouldn’t have left. I wish I were more grateful for her sacrifices.”

“I’m sure she understood,” Ari says softly. “And I know she’s smiling down on you.”

Mona laughs. “My mother is dead, Ari. Her body is well on its way to decay.”

“Girl, don’t say that. The Lord doesn’t like it. Besides, even if you don’t believe in the all-mighty, everyone needs a little hope. It’s sad to assume that once we die, that’s the end.”

“Humans.” Mona laughs bitterly. “The only species on the planet who think they’re important enough to get a do-over.”

Ari sighs as if frustrated. “Is that why you decided to learn Farsi? In remembrance of your momma?”

“No,” Mona says, shaking her head. “That’s only a part of it.”

12

MONA

“What changed?” Ari asks, genuinely curious.

I like Ari. She’s a steadfast friend and truly listens without judgment. I never thought I’d be friends with someone religious. My family ran away from overtly religious people.

But Ari has shown me that not all religious people are overbearing zealots desperate to force everyone to adhere to their beliefs. Ari’s belief in God is personal, something she holds dear. The way she talks about God and faith is beautiful. She’s never forced me to accept her beliefs or judged me for being different. If Jesus were real, he’d be proud of Ari.

We met in the first year of college. We both studied criminology, but over time, our academic interests shifted. Ari went on to law school while I leaned toward social work and outreach. But one thing that never fluctuated was our friendship.

I consider her question, unsure how to answer it. Being Iranian in the West is a complex balancing act. It’s hard to explain the various emotions that plague Iranians because Western media’s bias and limited portrayal fail to capture thefull complexity of Iranian experiences and perpetuate harmful stereotypes.

People use us to propagate information depending on the demographic they want to sensationalize. We’re victims of persecution by a religion they hate, or we’re extremists they despise. Iranians are ambiguous, especially those of us who aren’t religious. An Iranian without an accent can truly be anything they want within the Western world. Speak English with the accent of the locals, and you become a chameleon. We claim Portuguese, Italian, Greek, and Spanish descent—an array of relatively safe people with an olive complexion.

Laughter bubbles out of me as I remember a trip to Greece a few years ago. I looked across the Mediterranean Sea and contemplated how artificial borders and differences in faith labeled one group human and the other not to so many in the West. I felt a sense of shame for all the years I denied my identity and avoided having friends at my house so they wouldn’t hear my mother’s accent. All those times I refused to take her delicious homemade Persian food for lunch for fear of the taunts. Now my mother is gone, I’d do anything to go back and show everyone how lucky I was to have that woman as a parent. A woman who sacrificed for me. A parent who loved my siblings and me unconditionally.

“I grew up. I spent years turning my back on a culture and the people who formed me because I wanted to belong with people who would never accept me.”

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