Youth: Kasra Hoor

I had a great time interviewing my dad and being interviewed by my dad. I learned a lot of things I didn’t know about Iran and the culture there and how Zoroastrianism is different there compared to the United States. It was also very challenging to answer my dad’s interesting questions. Overall, it was a great experience and I really enjoyed it and appreciated the opportunity to participate in the interview.

Participant: Kaivan Hoor

It was very fun and exciting to have this interview with Kasra. He challenged me with his smart questions, especially when he asked about the difference between Zoroastrianism in Iran and the USA.

From Motherland to Otherland: An Intergenerational Dialogue

Interviewer: Kasra Hoor

Date: 9/17/2024

Transcript

00:00:07 Speaker 1

Hello everybody. My name is Kaivan and I’m here with my son Kasra.

00:00:15 Speaker 2

Hi.

00:00:16 Speaker 1

And we’re going to have a brief conversation about Zoroastrian culture, about Farsi language, and about immigration. So, I’m going to ask Kasra some questions and then he’s going to ask me some questions and the conversation will be about those topics. So let me start with my questions to Kasra. Kasra, how are you?

00:00:49

I’m good. How are you?

00:00:51 Speaker 1

Good. Thank you for asking. It was not one of my questions [laughter], but I’m going to start right now.

00:01:00 Speaker 2

OK.

00:01:03 Speaker 1

So, my first question to you is – have you ever visited Iran?

00:01:09 Speaker 2

Yes, I have. I was very young when I visited. I was about one year old, and I don’t really remember anything.

00:01:17 Speaker 1

Yeah, I remember we took you there about like, it was like 14 years ago, and you were only one year old, and you don’t really remember anything, unfortunately.

00:01:26 Speaker 2

Hmm. Yeah, I don’t.

00:01:30 Speaker 1

We couldn’t go back to Iran since then and that was the only time you went to Iran, but you don’t remember anything so…

00:01:40 Speaker 2

Yeah, sadly.

00:01:42 Speaker 1

So, what do you know about Iran?

00:01:46 Speaker 2

What do I know about Iran? I know that Iran is one of the oldest civilizations. I know that the capital is Tehran. I know that there’s many different cultures and religions in Iran. Some of the religions are Islam, Bahai, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism. And the main ethnicity, you could say, is just plain Persian that lives there.

00:02:14 Speaker 1

OK so, our religion is Zoroastrianism and I want to know what do you know about Zoroastrian culture?

00:02:20 Speaker 2

Yes. Zoroastrian culture, I would say the most important thing is good deeds, good thoughts, good words. But I would also say another important thing is the aspect of the four elements of fire, water, earth, and wind. And then another thing is the protection of Earth like humans, plants, and animals.

00:02:52 Speaker 1

Yeah. And you remember we watched the movie Elemental? It was about four elements that…

00:02:56 Speaker 2

Yeah.

00:03:00 Speaker 1

…they are very important in Zoroastrian and Iranian culture and I’m happy that you mentioned that.

00:03:04

Yes.

00:03:13 Speaker 1

My other question to you is – I know that you speak Farsi, right?

00:03:18 Speaker 2

Yes.

00:03:19 Speaker 1

How did you learn Farsi?

00:03:22 Speaker 2

I learned Farsi just growing up in a Persian household talking, speaking Farsi with my parents and grandparents, and just family in general.

00:03:32 Speaker 1

OK. And, that’s where you learned how to speak Farsi. Do you want to say some sentences in Farsi?

00:03:47 Speaker 2

OK.

Persian: Salām. Shomā khoob hasteen? Rooz bekhayr.

Translation: Hello. How are you? (direct translation: Are you well?) Good day.

00:03:50 Speaker 1

Persian: Rooz bekhayr Kasra. Khoobi?

Translation: Good day Kasra. How are you? (direct translation: Are you well?)

00:03:52 Speaker 2

Persian: Balè blalé, man khoobam shomā khoobeed?

Translation: Yes, yes, I’m well. How are you? (direct translation: Are you well?)

00:03:55 Speaker 1

Persian: Madresè kay shuroo meeshé

Translation: When will school start?

00:03:57 Speaker 2

Persian: Madresè? Panjshanbé. Doe roozé deegé.

Translation: School? Thursday. Two more days.

00:04:01 Speaker 1

Persian: Khaylee ham khoob.

Translation: Very well.

Great job Kasra so all right. Have you ever felt ashamed or uncomfortable when you speak Farsi?

00:04:13 Speaker 2

Ashamed. Yes, mostly when I was younger, speaking to elders who really knew Farsi, like a lot better than me, was like, I felt pretty ashamed that I didn’t know it that well and I would mess up on some words most of the time sometimes.

00:04:30 Speaker 1

Yeah. Has it happened in your family? When we are in our family sitting together, have you ever felt ashamed when you speak Farsi?

00:04:44 Speaker 2

Yes, sometimes when it’s a topic that’s difficult like a topic that uses a lot of like harder to understand words. Yeah, I sometimes do. I don’t know the meaning of some of them, but that’s only really difficult words.

00:05:02 Speaker 1

Yeah, I’m so sorry. Yeah, sometimes your mom and I, we talk about some topics and we may use some difficult words in Farsi that you don’t understand, but you don’t have to feel ashamed.

00:05:18 Speaker 2

Yes.

00:05:22 Speaker 1

Actually, my English is not as good as you and sometimes when even you talk to me, I feel, I feel ashamed that I cannot understand very well. But I’ll try my best, I promise.

00:05:37 Speaker 2

Yes, me too.

00:05:41 Speaker 1

OK. So, my last question to you is, do you like to visit Iran?

00:05:49 Speaker 2

Yes, I would like to visit Iran and explore all the mysteries that I haven’t been able to when I was younger.

00:05:57 Speaker 1

OK, which cities do you want to visit?

00:06:03 Speaker 2

Cities, I would say Tehran, Yazd, and Shiraz.

00:06:09 Speaker 1

Shiraz! Oh, so you know that most of the Persian Zoroastrians, they come from Yazd and Kerman and some of them now are living in Shiraz.

00:06:10 Speaker 2

Yes. Yes. Yeah.

00:06:24 Speaker 1

I like Shiraz. It’s a beautiful city.

00:06:28

Yeah.

00:06:30 Speaker 1

Also, Yazd is a beautiful city. I remember you were talking to me a while ago about some structures that are, that are there that you like them right?

00:06:45 Speaker 2

Yeah. They look really ancient and look like they hold a lot of history and I’d like to learn about it.

00:06:51 Speaker 1

Yeah, and I remember a while ago you told me that you wanna go to Kermanshah? Don’t know why, but you said you want to go to Kermanshah.

00:07:04 Speaker 2

Yeah, I remember.

00:07:06 Speaker 1

Yeah, hopefully we can go to Iran very soon.

00:07:10 Speaker 2

Hopefully.

00:07:10 Speaker 1

And we can visit Iran. Iran has many, many beautiful and colorful cities. Believe me. You have to see them.

00:07:25 Speaker 2

Yeah, I’d like to.

00:07:27 Speaker 1

OK. Kasra joon, those are my questions. Now it’s your turn. Go ahead, I’m ready.

00:07:36 Speaker 2

OK, OK. So, first question, what do Zoroastrians do different, religiously, in Iran compared to here in the United States.

00:07:49 Speaker 1

Religiously, they don’t do anything different than here. But let me say this. Zoroastrianism has two parts. One part is the core of the religion, the core of the religion is the Gathas. Gathas are the thoughts and teachings of Ashu Zarathosht. They come directly from him. They are all his thoughts. But our religion has also another part that, those are, which I call them traditions. Traditions…part of our traditions, they come from Iranian culture. It’s not necessarily Zoroastrian. Yeah. But they come from Iranian culture, like Gahambar or those monthly celebrations that we have like, we call Jashn, like Amordadgan, or Shahrivargan, or Tirgan, or Mehregan.

00:09:01 Speaker 2

Mm.

00:09:02 Speaker 1

What I will say is that in Iran, they pay more attention to the, to the traditions. When I came here, like 18 years ago, I noticed that most of the people here, that they have been here for a long time and they mostly focus on Gathas, which is the core of our religion. But they almost forgot about the traditions. And I would say that in Iran, the difference in Iran is that they, people in Iran, the Zoroastrians in Iran, they pay more attention to the traditions. And here, the focus is on the core of the religion which is the Gathas, and I think there should be a balance between tradition and the core of the religion.

00:09:53 Speaker 2

Yes. I agree.

00:10:02 Speaker 1

So, that’s the big difference between the Zoroastrians in Iran and in the United States.

00:10:12 Speaker 2

So, would you say they celebrate Jashn more in Iran rather than in the United States?

00:10:17 Speaker 1

Yes, absolutely. I can say that in Iran, they almost celebrate all the monthly Jashn, from fireworks, from Farvardingan to Esfandgan. They celebrate, celebrate all of them.

00:10:26 Speaker 2

Mm. Yes.

00:10:32 Speaker 1

In almost all the cities that have some Zoroastrian people there. But here, I would say because of the lifestyle of people here, we cannot celebrate all the monthly Jashn, or we don’t want to, I don’t know. But mostly we celebrate Mehregan or Sadeh or Norooz or Tirgan but not all the monthly Jashn, and I think we should start doing that.

00:11:09 Speaker 2

Yes, we should, absolutely. OK, moving on to the second question. What political differences did the United States have that made you decide you needed to move here?

00:11:27 Speaker 1

The main issue of the immigration, the main reason of the immigration, is the discrimination in Iran between the Muslim and non-Muslim people. But the discrimination is from government side, not from society side.

00:11:51 Speaker 2

Yes.

00:11:52 Speaker 1

The people of Iran, they live together, they get along with all, all the religions, and they love each other. But we have unfortunately, we have a government over there that they enforce some laws that discriminates people between people, between Muslim and non-Muslim people. For example, in Iran, if a non-Muslim man kills…sorry if a Muslim kills a non-Muslim person, there won’t be any punishment except for maybe a year or a couple of years in prison. And after that they will release him, they will release the murderer. That is, that is ridiculous and….

00:12:49 Speaker 2

Wow, that’s not right.

00:12:52 Speaker 1

That’s not a good law. And it would put the lives of non-Muslim people in danger because any Muslim can kill a non-Muslim without any punishment and that’s not good.

00:13:02 Speaker 2

Yes.

00:13:06 Speaker 1

We have many, many other bad laws against the non-Muslim in Iran that the government enforce them, and it would take forever because it’s, it’s part of Islamic laws. And if you want to change them, you have to change the religion, which is impossible. So that’s the main reason of the immigration of non-Muslim people to other countries. But another issue, which is a general issue is the economic situation in Iran.

00:13:48 Speaker 2

Mm.

00:13:48 Speaker 1

18 years ago, when I, when I fled Iran, there was a high inflation over there.

00:13:58 Speaker 2

Yeah.

00:13:58 Speaker 1

And now, nowadays the inflation is like thousand times worse than 18 years ago. And that’s another big problem that caused the immigration. But yes, mostly those brutal laws in Iran force people to get out of Iran and they go to other countries around the world, including United States of America.

00:14:34 Speaker 2

Yes, that’s very unfortunate and I’m glad you were able to move here before it got worse.

00:14:40 Speaker 1

Yeah. And you know, I’m..I feel very bad for the people in Iran. I know that they love their country, but because of the situation over there, they cannot leave. They cannot live in their homeland and they have to flee Iran, go to other countries. This is very sad, very sad.

00:15:07 Speaker 2

Yeah, very sad.

Alright, OK. But moving on to the third question – when you first arrived in the United States, was it different to oh…was it difficult to settle in?

00:15:22 Speaker 1

I would say it was more than difficult because when you go, when you go to another country to live, you don’t know the culture. You don’t know the language. You don’t know the laws. You don’t know the people. You don’t know anything. It’s, it’s like living in another planet. It was the same for me because when I came here, my language was very limited. I knew some English words and I knew some English grammar, but it was not enough to communicate with people here. Although we landed in Los Angeles, that has a large population of Iranian people, but still it was very hard. I remember that one day I was sick, and I went to doctor. And I wanted to tell doctor that I have a runny nose. I didn’t know the word for runny nose, and I had to use the sign language somehow to show the doctor that I have runny nose and it would take me maybe like 15 minutes to tell, “Doctor I have runny nose. I’m sick. I have a runny nose.” And it was one of the examples, but yes, when I came here it was very hard.

We have to, first, we had to find somewhere to live, an apartment or a house, or somewhere to rent and to live. And then we had to find a job which was, which was, very difficult because our English was limited and we could not go to, go and get like high rank jobs. So after, after a few years when we settled, we got more familiar with the laws, with the culture. We could go to a college, get some certifications or degrees or whatever, go to university and you know it’s life. Let me tell you this – for the first maybe two or three years, maybe four years, I couldn’t accept that I’m going to live here permanently. I thought that I’m, I’m a guest, I’m a guest here and I’m going to go back to Iran one day very soon, but…

00:18:18 Speaker 2

Oh. Yeah.

00:18:25 Speaker 1

…it didn’t happen and when I got my citizenship here, I finally admitted that I’m not a guest here. I have to live here. I have to live here permanently, unfortunately.

00:18:38 Speaker 2

Unfortunately, yeah.

00:18:38 Speaker 1

And. I’m not going back to Iran. But I’m hoping that I can go back to Iran one day very soon, and I don’t know when it’s going to happen, but I hope it would be very soon.

00:18:58 Speaker 2

Yeah, me too, I’d really like to visit Iran.

00:19:02 Speaker 1

Yes.

00:19:04 Speaker 2

OK, fourth and final question – what do you miss most from Iran?

00:19:12 Speaker 1

[Sigh..]. Iran is my home, my homeland.

00:19:23 Speaker 2

Yes.

00:19:24 Speaker 1

When you are away from your home, you miss even the bricks of your home. I miss every inch of Iran, believe me, every inch of Iran. Every inch of my city, which was, which is Tehran.

00:19:41 Speaker 2

Mm.

00:19:43 Speaker 1

When I was, when I was in Iran, I used to walk a lot. I walked from home to the office of a magazine that I worked there voluntarily.

00:19:54 Speaker 2

Oh, OK.

00:19:55 Speaker 1

But like 45 minutes. Right now, when I’m thinking about those days, I really miss all the streets of Iran, Tehran. I even missed the air that the people say it’s not clean and is polluted, but I really miss that polluted air even!

00:20:18 Speaker 2

Would you go on walks often, every day?

00:20:21 Speaker 1

What was that?

00:20:22 Speaker 2

Would you go on walks often? Every day almost?

00:20:25 Speaker 1

Yes, everyday. Every day! I used to walk every day from home to that office and…

00:20:29 Speaker 2

OK.

00:20:34 Speaker 1

..when I was done, when I was done over there, I walked again from  the office to home.

00:20:41 Speaker 2

Wow.

00:20:44 Speaker 1

Yeah, I miss, I miss everything in Iran. I miss my friends over there, my city, Persian food we have. We have all kinds of Persian food here, but you know the food in Iran has different taste.

00:20:58 Speaker 2

Yes. I understand, yes.

00:21:09 Speaker 1

I don’t know. It’s, it’s very sad. Unfortunately, I cannot go back to Iran. I had some political activities here. I cannot go back to Iran right now and I really miss Iran and I hope that I can go back there one day very soon. When Iran is free.

00:21:33 Speaker 2

Hopefully.

00:21:34 Speaker 1

We all, we all can go back to Iran and enjoy.

00:21:38 Speaker 2

Yes, hopefully I would like to really visit Iran and explore all of the cities.

00:21:46 Speaker 1

OK, I think that was it, right?

00:21:53 Speaker 2

Yeah, I don’t have any more questions, do you?

00:21:57 Speaker 1

Good. So yeah, that was our brief conversation about different topics. And I hope you enjoyed it. And thank you Kasra.

00:22:10 Speaker 2

Yes, of course. Thank you.

00:22:10 Speaker 1

Being here. And have a great day everybody. Bye bye.

00:22:17 Speaker 2

Have a good day. Bye bye.