Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America by Firoozeh Dumas

In 1972, when she was seven, Firoozeh Dumas and her family moved from Iran to Southern California, arriving with no first-hand knowledge of this country beyond her father's glowing memories of his graduate school years here. More family soon followed, and the clan has been here ever since.

Funny in Farsi chronicles the American journey of Dumas's family: her engineer father, a sweetly quixotic dreamer who first sought riches on Bowling for Dollars and in Las Vegas, and later lost his job during the Iranian revolution; her elegant mother, who never fully mastered English (nor cared to); her uncle, who combated the effects of American fast food with an army of miraculous American weight-loss gadgets; and Firoozeh herself, who as a girl changed her name to Julie, and who encounted a second wave of culture shock when she met and married a Frenchman, becoming part of a one-couple melting pot.

In a series of deftly drawn scenes, we watch the family grapple with American English (hot dogs and hush puppies? - a complete mystery). American traditions (Thanksgiving turkey?- an even greater mystery, since it tastes like nothing), and American culture (Firoozeh's parents laugh uproariously at Bob Hope on television, although they don't get the jokes even when she translates them into Farsi). - SBCL

In this bittersweet memoir about growing up Iranian in southern California, Dumas relates her family's encounters with American culture and how their preconceived notions frequently clashed with reality. - CDE