For over ten years, my bride & I have known this large Irani-American group in Maryland--actually, they tend to call themselves Persians. Last Saturday night, we were invited to the wedding of Roy & Katie, both Irani-Americans. As I listened to the ceremony and looked around at all the people I'd known for so long, I realized that for years, I had been seeing what cultural assimilation should mean for all immigrants to America.
I also realized how little I knew about Islam, and Shia (or Shiite) Islam in particular. The marriage administrator (I never could find out if he was a religious leader or Imam) acknowledged that there were many in the audience who didn't know Farsi, so he would explain the significance of the ceremony in Farsi and English.
And then he said, "Although you don't know Farsi, think of love. There is a voice in the universe. If you listen very carefully you will hear that voice, and it is the voice of love." Muslims, Christians, and Jews are three people separated by a common God with the same message. We just don't ever seem to listen to each other.
It was a wonderfully informal ceremony yet filled with rituals essential to a Shia Islamic wedding. Katie's aunt Mahnaz had spent weeks putting together an incredible display of incense, sweets, bread, honey, flowers, the Quran, a prayer rug, candles, a mirror, and eggs, all representative of blessings, holiness, good wishes, purity, joy, love, and a host of other values we too infrequently associate with Islam. When Katie said "yes" to the question of whether she would take Roy, (after twice ignoring the question while her relatives yelled out things like, "she's not here, she went to gather flowers" or "she went to gather rosewater") the marriage administrator said, "this is the yes of the rest of her life."
If this ceremony and the party afterwards represents the Persian culture and the Shia way of Islam, then we Americans have so much to learn about and from them. The music was almost all Persian, the dress all American. The dancing was a mix of Persian and American steps. Most of the women were graceful and elegant, using their hips, arms, hands, and shoulders to express the music. Most of the men were like the rest of American men. Two left feet sunk into ten pounds of cement. But lively cemented feet nonetheless.
It would have been so easy for them to have unintentionally excluded any non-Iranis, but it was just the opposite. People went out of their way to make sure everyone was included. The openness and friendship wasn't forced, it wasn't "wedding behavior," it's simply who they are. There were many toasts--far too many, but what's a wedding without endless toasts--but I've never seen such an outpouring of emotion and affection from women and men, so many expressions of love.
Had this just been a wedding, I wouldn't be writing about it regardless of how much fun we had, but it was more than that. Being somewhat slow on the uptake, it brought into focus a solution to what has seemed a growing problem in America--the assimilation of new cultures.
When my father's family came to the U.S. in the late 19th century and my mother's in the 1930s, they were determined to become "Americans." No other language than English. Some of the cultural and culinary aspects of their lives in Europe were kept, but most were lost as they desperately tried to "fit in." Not long before my maternal grandmother died, I tried to get her to talk about Hungary, the old country, but she refused, saying her country was dead.
On the other extreme are the Asians, Hispanics, and others who come to the U.S., form tight enclaves where everything is written and children are taught in their native tongue, consigning them all to second class American citizenship. (I know there are exceptions. I've heard of Mexican communities in Texas where they all refuse to speak anything but English--same dumb mistakes my people made.)
But the Persians have the best of both worlds. They've managed to hold deeply to their cultural heritage while easing almost seamlessly into American life. They both give and take in equal amounts.
Finally, I don't know what life was life in pre-revolutionary Iran, but these folks know how to party, and the women are free spirits lifted up by the occasion, charming, funny, and beautiful.
If other ethic groups could emulate the Persians, I can only dream what an extraordinary society would emerge in America.
EXCELLENT Mr. Mark....
Posted by: Prue Fontaine | April 13, 2005 at 07:33 PM