The Ungrateful Refugee: What Immigrants Never Tell You

When a person of a minority community adopts the language and culture of the majority, this is a process of assimilation. The state can enforce assimilation, such as the Farsi-only schools in Kurdistan, or the immigrants can pursue it as a means of integrating into society. Maman insists on her children adopting Western values to make them appealing to humanitarian organizations. This involves not only learning English, but also changing her son’s name to Daniel and teaching them how to swim so that they can pass as middle class.

Refugees require approval from a host nation, or asylum, before they can reside in the country legally. This includes extensive interviews and documentation, and refugees wait in camps for approval. Nayeri’s family waited for months in Dubai and Italy during this process, where they could not own a residence and had few work and school opportunities. The process became even more difficult after Nayeri’s family’s experience: Nayeri later describes asylum interviewers using rapid-fire questions to draw out inconsistencies and ask probing questions of LGBTQ people. Refugee camps vary widely in quality of life, and camps like Moria have broken plumbing systems and active ethnic gangs. Refugees who are denied asylum can fall into abusive black markets.

Nayeri refers to her family by informal Farsi terms. “Maman” is Farsi for mother, “Maman Moti” is a maternal grandmother, and “Maman Masi” is a paternal grandmother. “Baba” is father. Nayeri notes that the longer she lived in America the more she referred to them with the English words. In addition, her family often refers to her as “Dina joon,” with “joon” as a Farsi term of endearment like “dear” in English or Japanese honorifics. The literal translation can mean “soul,” “spirit,” or “life.” (Pontia. “8 Uses of the Persian Word Joon.” My Persian Corner, 27 Mar. 2018, www.mypersiancorner.com/7-uses-of-the-persian-word-joon/.)

The hijab and chador are Islamic veils that are meant to preserve female modesty. The hijab hides only the hair and neck, while the chador covers the entire body. These garments have a complicated legacy. Many non-Muslims view them as sexist subjugation. Nayeri thinks the chador makes teachers look monstrous and much older than their real age. Meanwhile, Maman “glistened with rage” when the authorities threatened her for letting strands of hair fall out of her hijab while trying to catch her son (35). Nayeri and Maman stop wearing their hijab after leaving Iran. At the same time, these garments are important to the religious practices of many Muslims, which can make them targets of discrimination. Maman also willingly wore the hijab during a pre-revolution protest.

Isoboxes are steel shipping containers that the Katsikas refugee camp repurpose into refugee homes. Each unit includes a kitchenette, bathroom, and beds on metal frames. Isobox homes are known as Conexes to Iranian refugees.

The Iranian Revolution was the overthrow of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi’s Western-backed constitutional monarchy by supporters of religious leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The Shah modernized Iran’s infrastructure and implemented Western reforms but faced increasing disapproval due to cultural shifts and economic issues that stagnated Iranians’ standard of living. The Shah’s suppression and censorship enraged protestors until oil industry workers went on strike and the Iranian military announced its neutrality. The Shah fled to the United States. Although Khomeini’s supporters were a coalition of left-wing political parties and fundamentalist leaders, the conservative faction declared Iran an Islamic republic and hunted down leftist and moderate voices. This included the use of the Revolutionary Guard to enforce Islamic practices in everyday life. (Afary, Janet. “Iranian Revolution.” Encyclopedia Britannia, updated 25 Mar. 2021, www.britannica.com/event/Iranian-Revolution.) While Maman herself protested the Shah, she also resented the government’s fundamentalist practices.

A slang term that Nayeri learns from her Iranian friends, a Javad is an Iranian hipster who wears gaudy clothing and imitates expat rappers who live in America or France—the equivalent of the New Jersey stereotype. Nayeri jokes about marrying a Javad, which upsets the group because they are close to being the stereotype themselves.

Kurdistan is the homeland of the Kurds in the mountainous region bordering Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. However, their traditions are not uniform: For example, the Iraqi Kurds use different naming conventions based on the father’s and grandfather’s names. Iraqi Kurds generally possess the most autonomy, while the Iran government suppresses the Kurdish language and culture. (“Who Are the Kurds?” BBC, 15 Oct. 2019, www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-29702440.) Kaweh leaves his home to join the Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI), who maintain strict procedures to protect its leaders. Kaweh’s story begins when he refuses to spy on the KDPI for the Revolutionary Guard.

A nationalist ideology prioritizes national self-interest over international collaboration, often with aggressive and xenophobic undertones. A key tactic of nationalist politicians is to vilify refugees and other immigrants as threats to the nation’s security, economy, and culture. This rhetoric escalated in the West in the mid-2010s under figures like United States President Donald Trump and the United Kingdom Independent Party, which attacked immigration as part of its Brexit campaign to remove the UK from the European Union. Nayeri writes The Ungrateful Refugee in part to counter this trend as “these once-Christian nations have abandoned duty in favor of entitlement and tribal instinct” (131).

Nayeri uses “Maman’s Three Miracles” to refer to the fortunate outcomes that allowed her family to escape from Iran into the United Arab Emirates, which is a harder means of escaping than entering Turkey. First, they escaped house arrest, survived a police inspection on the way to Tehran, and flew out by plane despite war-related cancellations. Second, they obtained passports after Baba gave an official a free root canal. Third, they obtained a three-month sponsored visa for Dubai from Mr. Jahangir. Maman treats this as divine interventions, while Baba complains that he deserves credit.

Nayeri notes that Maman’s Three Miracles are “the foundation of our escape story and therefore our future identities” (50). Maman tells her children to tell this narrative rather than pleasant stories of Iranian life to Americans, and she notes that it’s convenient for college admissions essays. A Persian friend suggests that this story is a cover for economic opportunism, which makes Nayeri question her own memories, even though she has proof of her experiences.

A refugee is a person who lives outside their country of origin due to a fear of violence or persecution. Their citizenship protections come from international law, and these protections do not change should they go from one host country to another. Refugees are a protected class, and the term is not interchangeable with words like immigrant or migrant. (UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). ‘Refugees’ and ‘Migrants’—Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs). 31 Aug. 2018, www.refworld.org/docid/56e81c0d4.html.) The Ungrateful Refugee details the struggles that Nayeri’s family and modern refugees face, including entering a new society that is ignorant and suspicious of them. Nayeri points out psychological challenges in her life, including an obsessive perfectionism and the lingering fear that people she meets, even her first husband, could have her deported her back to Iran. Despite complaints about refugees entering the United States and Europe, most settle in countries neighboring their homeland.

Sepâh is shorthand for the Farsi name of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a division of Iran’s military that targets internal dissidents. It coordinates with volunteer militias (Basijis) and the Guidance Police that enforces morality (Gashte-Ershad). The Sepâh beat or kill those they consider political enemies and unfaithful Muslims, and many refugees escape Iran after becoming targets. However, they may try to convince some, like Maman or Kaweh, to spy on their organizations. The Sepâh do little to verify the information they collects, such as when they target Kambiz for an alleged affair, and may add more charges to justify punishment, such as Darius.