Becoming American: Why Immigration Is Good for Our Nation's Future (3 page)

While my father studied chemical engineering and my mother statistics in the United States, back home in Iran, the country roiled in geopolitical intrigue. Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh nationalized the country’s oil industry, sparking a harsh response from Britain and the United States. The two allies feared, in an era of cold war, losing access to the Iranian oil fields on which they relied. To secure their situation, in 1953 the British and the U.S. governments chose to overthrow the duly elected government of Mossadegh in a coup, allowing Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah, to become ruler.

Before my parents and I returned to Iran in the early 1950s, my mother gave birth to my sister, Margaret, and the family moved to Baton Rouge, where my father earned his degree from Louisiana State University. Due to a political crisis in Iran, currency restrictions were put in place, and thus both of my parents were forced to work in whatever jobs they could find in order to help support us.

My family had a tradition of producing men and women who were well educated and served in academia and public office. Early in the 1920s, my paternal grandfather was among the first teachers at the newly renamed American University of Beirut in Lebanon, and my maternal grandfather was a governor of one of Iran’s states, Kermanshah, on the Iraq border. My mother, who had worked for IBM, had supervised Iran’s first census and once ran for the Iranian congress.

Upon the family’s return to Iran, my father went back to the military, then changed fields and entered the diplomatic corps, which kept the family moving around the world in places such as Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Israel. I did my best to survive the gusts of wind that buffeted me from one country and culture to the next.

While I ultimately ended up graduating from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard Business School, my original postsecondary choice would have led me down a very different path. My parents had sent me to American Community Schools in high school due to my family’s frequent moves, and they insisted that I attend classes twelve months a year: summers attending Persian classes and passing the Iranian exams so as not to fall behind in the Iranian system as well. However, when it came time to apply to a university, I had little guidance from either the American Community School system, since I was Iranian, or my parents. I ended up attending Ursinus College in Pennsylvania, with the intention of eventually becoming a physician. My first year there I did exceptionally well in math and the sciences and caught the attention of my English professor, Richard Richter, who sat down with me and helped me bring my English grade up to an A. He went on to advise me that I really should be going to a school with a more challenging math and science curriculum and set about helping me transfer to MIT. While I would eventually shelve the plans to go to medical school, this important mentoring helped set me on a path to achieve success. Richter subsequently became the president of Ursinus College, and when I contacted him years later to express my appreciation, he did not initially remember me or the wonderful mentoring he had done.

So, in the mid-1960s, when I turned seventeen years old, I went to MIT in Cambridge, where my supplemental year-round education in Iran had prepared me well. My first year was easily accomplished, but by my junior year, I had to roll up my sleeves. I ended up earning two undergraduate degrees in chemical engineering and biology, specializing in the biomedical area, and a master’s degree in mechanical engineering. Then it was on to Harvard Business School, where I earned an MBA and a doctorate.

At MIT, I joined the Chi Phi fraternity, where an Iranian name like Fariborz was either too difficult or too intimidating to pronounce. My frat brothers in the house decided to call me “Bob.” They didn’t have a “Bob” in the house, so I became “Bob.” To this day, I am still greeted by old fraternity brothers as “Bob.”

This was not the first time I had encountered major differences between my culture and the dominant one. You see, in my high school days I enjoyed a unique opportunity studying in international American schools during the academic year and then during the summer retaking the same coursework in Farsi with the Iranian school system flunkies (Tajdeedeeha). While this helped to bolster my already substantial understanding of my subjects, it also made me more deeply aware of my ethnic and cultural roots in the long shadow cast by an economic powerhouse like the United States.

I still remember the essay I wrote about Alexander the Great for a history class while I was in the American Community School system. I am proud to say I received an A+ on the paper. I wrote about how Alexander of Macedon spread Hellenic culture, was undefeated in battle, and ruled one of the largest empires of the ancient world. Coming across a similar writing prompt in my summer class in Iran, I shamelessly translated and submitted the same essay after a few edits. Having received an excellent grade on it previously, I was shocked to receive an F from my Iranian teacher. He asked me how I could write such things, for “Alexander the Terrible” brought death and destruction to Persia’s capital, Persepolis, which was located in what is now modern Iran. He burned its libraries and looted its treasury. I learned then that the collision of cultures could lead to major misunderstandings and cause both great and terrible outcomes.

Living as a young boy in the segregated 1950s of Louisiana, I had begun to notice the collision of cultures in small but not insignificant ways. There was an African American man named John, whose daily work break at the local gas station coincided with the end of my school day. Since my mother was working, he would accompany me home from school each day. In order for us to take the bus together, I had to ride in the last row of seats for whites, while John sat in the first row of seats for blacks. The message I took from this was that we are not all the same, even in America, the land of the free.

I would hear local whites refer to John as “boy,” and when I referred to him once by that name in front of my mother, she quickly corrected me. My mom said, “He’s not a boy; he’s a man, and you call him Big John from now on.” Big John responded to his new moniker by christening me “curly top.”

By the time I was in college, the Jim Crow laws had been overturned, and I found the experience of studying alongside students from other cultures and countries positive and reaffirming. I think there is a sense of gratitude to be educated in this country; the sense your parents made this sacrifice; the sense you are representing your country. I threw myself into the experience and became the president of the foreign student association at MIT. In this role, I communicated the concerns and expectations of our multicultural student body to the administration and planned multicultural events that allowed students of all ethnicities to integrate more broadly in the MIT and Boston environment.

Additionally, during my time at MIT and then Harvard, while working on two research projects along with my full academic course load, I (along with another Iranian immigrant) bought a derelict apartment building as an investment. We rolled up our sleeves, and while until this point for us working hard had been relegated to the realm of academic pursuits, we cleaned up the building, redid the plumbing, painted, rewired the electrical system, and hauled out trash. We went on to rent the units and to manage the building while working on our academic studies.

During this time, I met a lovely, blond, blue-eyed American girl named Lis, who was studying studio art at Wellesley College. We fell in love, and while there were a number of cultural differences in our upbringings, we felt we were sufficiently educated and committed enough to conquer all odds, and eventually we married.

While both our families were happy we had each settled down with suitable partners, there were many small hurdles we had to navigate in order to meld our seemingly dissimilar families. Lis, on her part, immersed herself in learning Farsi, and while visiting us in Iran when the rest of the family was traveling, she helped take care of my ailing grandmother. I made sure that I was duly solicitous of her parents and was never without a gift on every occasion that I visited them in Penn Valley outside of Philadelphia.

Upon finishing academics, I followed the example my grandfather and father had made in service to their country, by working in Iran’s Ministry of Finance as a deputy vice minister for international investments. I cautiously attempted to navigate the currents and forces blowing me along my path. But my career there soon became tenuous when I came across corruption in the ministry and reported it, not realizing how high up the practice went in the ministry. I did not know the minister himself was involved.

So I resigned and returned to the States to join the World Bank Group as an investment officer at the International Finance Corporation. Becoming bored with the bureaucracy I found, I started a computer company in Washington, D.C., on the side. I named the company The Computer Emporium, and I had partners from Egypt, Canada, and the United States. In the 1970s, this was a bold move, as computers were still viewed as the domain of governments and industry titans, filling entire air-conditioned rooms. Even my own mother, who had worked for IBM and was actively involved in the computerization of the first Iranian census, thought it was a crazy idea to open a microcomputer store. I still remember her saying to me, “Who would want a computer in their home?” After all, she was used to IBM-360 computers in large, air-conditioned rooms. Despite all of the doubt, we managed to obtain the distribution rights to Apple, Commodore PET, and other computers, and our company grew.

A couple of years later, however, in 1977, when Iranian politics turned in my favor and a number of my colleagues came into power, I left the World Bank Group, hired an MIT alumni to manage the computer store, and returned to Iran. There I was made president of the Export Promotion Center, a vice ministerial post, under the government of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi. The Shah had previously brought about a program known as the White Revolution, which called for land reform, the extension of voting rights to women, and the elimination of illiteracy. He also brought many young, educated technocrats into government, me being one of them, and he modernized Iran. While the Shah brought social reform and economic growth to Iran, he also tried to hold on tightly to power and used the secret police to control the country. Thus, opposition grew, primarily within the mosques, and Ayatollah Khomeini, who advocated a populist ideology tied to Islamic principles, led the movement. Although Khomeini lived in exile in Iraq and later France, he was able to spread his message through music cassettes. Khomeini received the support of the conservatives in Iran, who believed that the Shah was leading Iran away from its traditional and religious roots.

I held the vice ministerial post for just over a year until late 1978, when I realized the Shah’s government was about to be toppled in revolution. Everything rapidly fell apart. This time the prototypical winds of change felt more like a jet stream propelling me forward. I still remember when the National Iranian Gas Company’s headquarters’ building burned to the ground. I believed, as we were told by the regime, that it was due to an accidental fire in the basement because of a machine malfunction. It was not until I talked to one of my colleagues that I found out it was set on fire by a group of radicals. The amazing thing about revolutions is how rapidly the societal system falls apart. One day there were demonstrations with thousands of women in dark head coverings (chadoors), and the next week the system collapses. My father had given his resignation and asked to retire. He was staying in London, where Lis and my sister had joined him. Dad, due to having had senior positions in the foreign service, military, and intelligence organizations, was concerned about possible problems if I stayed in Iran. My family repeatedly urged me to leave as soon as possible.

But it was difficult for government officials to leave the country. Assuming we could even book a flight to leave Tehran, we needed special permission from ministers. Finally, after a number of requests, a colleague of mine, who had become Minister of Finance (Minister Hassanali Mehran), approved my trip for a conference. With Dad’s connections with his majesty King Hussein of Jordan, I was able to leave Iran on a Jordanian flight.

I once again came back to the United States after much struggle. Upon returning, I took charge of The Computer Emporium and accepted a tenured position as a professor at George Washington University (GWU) in Washington, D.C. I held little hope that I would ever be able to rejoin the Iranian government ranks, as my being awarded a “Royal Decree” by the Shah had forever tainted me in the eyes of the ruling opposition. Those who supported the Shah back in Iran were executed or jailed by the hundreds. The Shah left Iran on January 16, 1979, and Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Iran on February 1, 1979. Events truly no longer moved linearly but rather exponentially.

My arrival back in the United States coincided with the Iranian hostage crisis, when fifty-two Americans working in the embassy in Tehran were held hostage for 444 days by a group of militants in Iran’s revolutionary movement. The hostages were only released under the condition that the United States transfer money and export military equipment to Iran.

Network television competition had a notable effect on the coverage of the crisis.
ABC
added a half-hour segment, hosted by Ted Koppel, to its national nightly news programming. Originally titled “America Held Hostage,” it went on to be renamed
Nightline
. In response, Walter Cronkite added to his famous sign-off, “and that’s the way it is,” a count of the days the hostages endured captivity.