I'm Not a Terrorist, But I've Played One on TV

by Maz Jobrani

  “Two free cookies. Von for your vhite ferend!”

  This was always happening whenever we walked into an Iranian-owned business. Once we got cookies, once we got ice cream, often we’d get hugs. Mark enjoyed the benefits: “Dude, I love hanging out with you. We’re always getting free shit!” “Yes,” warned the skeptical Iranian side of me, “but don’t get comfortable. Today they’re offering cookies, tomorrow it’ll be their daughters. They’re setting us up for something.”

  My Parents, the Foreigners

  Growing up with an Iranian family in a predominantly white county can present its own set of problems. No matter how hard I tried to blend in, my parents always managed to show up and give away the fact that I was different. When my friends were picked up from soccer practice, usually one parent would arrive to retrieve them. Often, my friends had parents who were divorced, which was totally cool in America. However, with Iranians, that was a no-no. No matter how much your parents hated each other, or could not stand each other even for short durations, they had to hang in there and save face in the community.

  “My vife? Do I love her? Love is such a relative term. I tell you now dat ve live in de same house together and at least vonce a veek ve say hello to von another.”

  Even if my Iranian parents had fallen out of love, they would both come to pick me up from soccer and they would bring the entire family with them in one car—mom, dad, siblings, aunts, grandma, neighbors, roosters. If you ever see a car overloaded with people, breaking all kinds of occupancy and seat-belt laws with several generations of a family crammed in wherever there’s room, they’re either Mexicans or Iranians. We bring the whole village for every single errand. I’m not sure why that is, but perhaps it has something to do with the revolutions and bad political circumstances our people fled in the old country. We pack the car with the entire family in case a revolution breaks out between the time we leave the house and the time we get to the soccer field. That way, if the revolution does happen (which in our minds is inevitable), we’ll have the whole family in the car and can keep on driving until we get to the next country.

  Even if my parents ever came alone to pick me up from soccer, they still stood out. My father had ways of being noticed. As an example, he drove a Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow. “Rolls-Royce?” you might say. “How lucky.” No. There was nothing lucky about being the rich kid from Iran whose dad drove a Rolls-Royce during the Iran hostage crisis in America.

  For those of you who are too young to remember and too lazy to google this historic event, here are the CliffsNotes. Iran had a revolution in 1979. Many Iranians, including my family and me, fled the country and came to America to get away from the Islamic regime that took over. No sooner had we settled in than a group of Iranian students stormed the American embassy in Iran and took fifty-two American hostages for 444 days, which was when . . . oh hell, just rent Argo, starring Ben Affleck as the lead CIA agent who happens to come from a Mexican background and rescues a bunch of good-guy Americans from a bunch of evil Iranians, which leads to him landing the role of Batman in the Batman vs. Superman movie. (Iranians like taking credit for everything, so, yes, I’m taking credit for helping Ben land Batman.) In the late seventies, there weren’t a thousand channels on TV. So every night Americans tuned in to watch Ted Koppel and his red coif tell us: “Day one hundred . . .” “Day one hundred and fifty-two . . .” “Day three hundred . . .” All I could think was: How long is this damn thing going to last? And how does Ted Koppel get his hair to sit like a perfectly manicured squirrel?

  Marin County was filled with rich white people who tended to be low key with their fortunes. They would drive Volvos and Saabs; some would even ride bikes. Yes, mountain bikes! My father, on the other hand, decided to buy the Rolls and drive around town like a rich Saudi sheikh. It wasn’t bad enough that there was a hostage crisis being played out every day on TV and that all my classmates likely thought I was the most spoiled kid in the school. But then my dad had to drop me off and pick me up in this gaudy car he had bought from a friend. My dad purchased most of his possessions from friends. Anyone who had financial problems would come to our house with items to sell and he would buy them. He was like eBay before there was eBay. He came home with old cars, ill-fitting suits, and anything else that was on the market. One time he brought home a bunch of phones. We already had plenty of phones, and we certainly didn’t have a bunch of extra rooms for the new phones. So they just sat in a cupboard in the kitchen waiting to go extinct. My mom made sure to remind him of his wasteful ways anytime they got into an argument.

  “Have you thought about buying some new used phones for us? Zee ones in zee cupboard are getting dusty. And vhile you’re at it, vhy don’t you get some more undersized suits so ve can give dem avay de next time some fancy midgets visit us?”

  I-ran, I-ran So Far Away

  During the Iran hostage crisis, my number-one goal was to lay low, blend in, and find more friends with names like Mark, Bret, Jesse, Steve, and Chip. I didn’t want anyone to know I was different, and I sure as hell didn’t want the older kids to know that I was Iranian, which even back then equated to “terrorist.” That would just give them an extra body to beat up. I didn’t even want anyone to know I existed. The less they knew about me, the better my chances of making it through the school days and getting home without a broken nose. Pops and his Rolls didn’t help in this mission at all.

  My attempt at blending in failed miserably when I was in the fourth grade. I was met with a verbal confrontation by a sixth grader named Jim who somehow figured out that I was the representative of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Marin County. After all, I had a funny name, beautiful furry eyebrows, strange-sounding parents, and a dad who drove a better car than his dad. I had to be involved with the hostage crisis somehow—I looked the part. This sixth grader came up with a clever nickname, calling me a Fucking Eye-ranian. That’s what people called Iranians back then: Fucking Eye-ranians. “First of all,” I explained, “it’s pronounced Ee-ron-ian, not Eye-ranian. Second, you’re bigger than me so it’s whatever you want it to be. Third, I’m not sure where you heard a rumor that I’m Iranian. I’m not. I’m totally Italian—ciao!”

  Such were the times that my only recourse was to stand there and take Jim’s abuse. The only person who came to my defense was a slightly older black fifth grader. I don’t remember his name, but I remember him walking with me and telling me to turn the other cheek and not take it personally. Given his advice, let’s call him Martin Luther King Junior Junior. MLKJJ had gone through similar abuse and learned to deal with it. In his case, he was a big kid, so I’m guessing that’s why the abuse toward him eventually ceased. I made a mental note to start lifting weights as soon as possible. Who knew how long this hostage thing would last? I either had to grow biceps or learn more words in Italian. You could only fool so many people with “ciao!” “spaghetti!” “tortellini carbonara!” It was a race between my biceps growing and Jim coming up with a clever new insult the other kids would latch onto.

  Then disaster struck, in the form of A Flock of Seagulls, the eighties band that wrote a song that gave kids plenty of ammunition in their bigotry arsenal: “I Ran (So Far Away).” For any non-Iranians reading this book, it was unfortunate to go right from the hostage crisis to this song. The lyrics had nothing to do with Iran, but kids would drag out the two words to make fun of me by singing, “I-ran, I-ran so far away.” It was like fingernails on a chalkboard.

  “It’s Ee-ron, goddamn it! Ee-ron. Get your racial barbs right.”

  “Oh, look who’s the angry Eye-ranian now!”

  Years later, while doing stand-up comedy, I began talking about these incidents. It felt like I was opening up an old wound, but it was good to talk about the childhood troubles I had with Jim. I was telling the Fucking Eye-ranian tale around the world on my Brown and Friendly tour. I would end the story by telling the audience that the kid who teased me back then had no ide
a I would become a stand-up comedian, performing in front of thousands of people some nights, and that I would tell them, “Ladies and gentlemen, Jim Juvonen is an asshole. Please spread the word on Facebook and Twitter and wherever else you like.” I began outing this kid, now presumably an adult, and the audience loved it because everyone can identify with being bullied at some point in his or her life.

  Still, part of me felt bad because I figured this was an incident that happened when we were kids. That’s what kids do, pick on each other. Who knows, maybe if there had been a North Korean in our school I would’ve picked on him, or at least diverted attention to him so that Jim and company would leave me alone. “Hey, Jim, I know I’m a fuckin’ eye-Ranian, but did you hear what the North Korean kid said about you? Yeah, plus he’s a communist! Get him!” I knew Jim was older now and probably a family man who was just living his life. The last thing he needed was to be hassled by me and my fans. I wondered what he was up to. Then one day, when I was listening to an interview on NPR with another Jim, comedian Jimmy Fallon, my question was answered. The interviewer asked Fallon about his short-lived movie career. He responded that he was in a few flops, but the one good thing that did come out of his movie career was Fever Pitch, where he met Drew Barrymore’s producing partner and married her. The name of the woman he married was Nancy Juvonen. My jaw dropped. It’s an unusual name. Could Fallon have married someone related to Jim Juvonen, who made my year as a fourth grader a living hell? I did what any self-respecting American would do. I googled it. Turns out that Fallon is now the brother-in-law of Jim, the guy who invented my nickname, Fucking Eye-ranian! What are the chances? If I ever do stand-up on Fallon’s talk show, I’ll bring up this story and hug it out with Jim—Juvonen, not Fallon; although I’m cool with Fallon hugging us, too. He can be our UN peace negotiator. We’ll do a three-way hug out. I can forgive and forget.

  “Jim, I’ve come on this show thirty years later to forgive you.”

  “Who are you again?”

  “Maz. The kid who lied to you during the hostage crisis.”

  “What did you lie to me about?”

  “About being Italian.”

  “So you’re not Italian?”

  “No! I’m Iranian.”

  “Eye-ranian?”

  “EEEE-RONIAN!”

  “Okay, take it easy! Fucking Eye-ranian!”

  My Loud Dad

  Another way my father stood out—he was LOUD. As a kid I’d sometimes speak loudly in the car and he would ask, “Vhy are you yelling? Did you svallow a microphone?” I would ponder whether maybe I had actually swallowed a microphone while sleeping and I just didn’t know about it. My father, on the other hand, sounded like he had a built-in microphone in his voice box. He had a deep, operatic voice. Imagine if your father were Luciano Pavarotti and he was always singing. That was my dad, without the beautiful melodies. Again, my efforts at blending in would always be foiled by this man, who knew no other way than to be loud and brown in the middle of a town filled with quiet white people. I remember one time we went to an ice cream parlor. My mouth was watering for my favorite flavor—strawberry with chocolate sprinkles. The girl behind the counter turned out to be a few years older than me and suddenly, everything changed. My father broke into a deep laugh and—very loudly, extremely embarrassingly—began hitting on the girl on my behalf.

  “HELLO, YOUNG LADY. YOU ARE LOOKING FOR HUSBAND, YES? MY SON VIL BE YOUR HUSBAND. HA! HA! HA!”

  He sounded like the bald black guy from the 7UP commercials in the eighties. (If you don’t know who I’m talking about, just search online for “Bald black guy from 7UP.” He was a classic!) When your father walks into an ice cream parlor and starts arranging your marriage—at the age of ten, mind you—you turn the color of the strawberry ice cream you were planning to order.

  “YOU MARRY MY SON, I DRIVE YOU IN MY ROLLS-ROYCE TO HONEYMOON!”

  My mother was subtler in her ways, which, given that my dad was so loud and grand, wasn’t saying much. The image most Americans have of Iranian women is of gentle, docile, veiled ladies who cook, clean, and raise the kids. My mother was far from that. She was a beautiful, active, and tough lady who did not hesitate to take her hangers and beat the crap out of me, my sister, my brothers, and even my aunt who lived with us. She wasn’t as bad as Joan Crawford from Mommie Dearest, but when we messed around she let us have it. This was a reflection of our culture. I thought this was normal in every family until one day when I was at my American friend Jesse’s house. His mom yelled at him for something, and Jesse, to my dismay, yelled back. I held my breath, waiting for his mom to whip out her hangers and beat the crap out of her son, and perhaps me. Instead she just yelled back at Jesse and went about her business.

  I was shocked. “That’s it? That’s all she’s going to do?”

  “Yep.”

  “No beatings with a hanger?”

  “Why would she beat me with a hanger?”

  “Because she’s your mom. That’s what moms do, isn’t it?”

  I’m not sure if this was only an Iranian thing or if it’s an immigrant thing, but beatings were a natural part of my upbringing. My father never hit us. He would just raise his voice and, due to the baritone delivery, we would immediately pee in our pants. My mother, on the other hand, had a repertoire of hanger abuse, spankings, and ear pulling. I’m convinced that my ears were naturally much smaller but that she helped shape them to the Spock-like size they are today.

  In the modern world that we live in, hitting your kids is a big no-no. I would never hit my kids, but sometimes I can understand why our parents would hit us. You get much quicker results when you come out of your room wielding a hanger in your hand than in the current environment, when you pull your child aside, get down to his level, and try to speak to him with a calm voice: “Do you know why Daddy is upset? Was it a good idea to pee pee on Daddy’s computer? Please go to your room and think about what you did. You don’t want to go to your room? Okay, let’s talk about how going to your room makes you feel.”

  As a kid I felt like I was living with a bunch of foreigners. Looking back on it, I was. When you come to a country at the age of six, you adapt quickly to the culture. However, your parents aren’t as exposed to the natives as you are. Older immigrants tend to find other immigrants to hang out with. We were always going to the homes of the other three or four Iranian families in Marin. They also had kids my age, so we could get together and play while our parents indulged in Persian card games. This gave us ample time to bad-mouth them and exchange strategies on how to distance ourselves further.

  “The worst part of having an Iranian dad is that he wears too much cologne,” someone would complain. “Whenever he picks me up from soccer, I can smell him a mile away.”

  “You think you have it bad? My dad insists on playing backgammon in the park while he waits for me to finish my practice.”

  “You want fresh off the boat? My dad drives me around town in a Rolls-Royce and proposes marriage to thirteen-year-old girls on my behalf. He thinks he’s the shah.”

  Call Me Tony

  Kids often turn to film and TV to find people they can relate to. Nowadays, when my kids watch TV there are cartoons with Latino leads (Dora the Explorer), Asian leads (Ni Hao Kai-Lan) and bear leads (Little Bear). Being Iranian in America in the eighties, I didn’t find many people on TV who I could relate to. There was the Iron Sheik, who was a wrestling villain from the World Wrestling Federation. He was hard to cheer for because he would come on TV with his Russian counterpart, Nikolai Volkoff, and shout, “Iran number von! Russia number von! America?” Then he would spit on the canvas. The crowd would boo and Hulk Hogan would arrive and distribute ass-whoopings for all the little Hulkamaniacs out there. The only other Iranians on TV or in film were the rich Persian neighbors in Down and Out in Beverly Hills and the Iranian husband in Not Without My Daughter.

  For anyone wh
o hasn’t seen Not Without My Daughter, let me summarize. It is based on a true story and stars Sally Field, who is married to an Iranian man in America. The Iranian man is played by Alfred Molina, who looks more Persian than I do. (I actually took a Shakespearean acting class with him once and he was so nice that any animosity I felt toward him from being in this movie melted away.)

  While they’re in the United States, the Molina character, Sayed Bozorg Mahmoody, a.k.a. Moody, is a charming medical school student who seems lovely to Sally. He has romantic picnics with her and treats her like his queen. Then they go for a short trip to Iran and the guy changes on a dime. He becomes misogynistic and abusive. (Which I guess explains why they call him “Moody.”) He won’t let Sally out of the house and tells her that he’s going to kill her and sacrifice her like a sheep. Furthermore, Moody tells her, he won’t let her take their daughter back to the United States. So Sally sets out to find a way to escape with her child, and thus the title, Not Without My Daughter.

  This was in Sally Field’s heyday; it would be like a Middle Eastern man doing this to Reese Witherspoon today. This movie did more to hurt the dating lives of Iranian men in America than the hostage crisis. Many of my friends relinquished any pride they had in their Persian background and just pretended to be Italian. Somehow, they could handle the hostage crisis, they could manage “I Ran (So Far Away),” but Not Without My Daughter put them over the edge. They went from being named Shahrokh, Mahmoud, and Farsheed to all being named Tony. I’m not sure why they all chose Tony, but it seemed odd to me that women wouldn’t question you when you would introduce your friends this way: “I’m Maz. This is my friend Tony. Over there, next to Tony, is Tony. Over there next to Tony and Tony is Tony. Yes, they’re all Italian. Very Italian. Me? I’m Iranian. Wait, where are you going? Did I say Iranian? I meant Persian, like the cat. Meow!”

  Finding Italian heroes on TV was easy. I became a fan of every Italian actor. If their names ended with an “o” I was into them—Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Marlon Brando, Elmo. (Okay, Elmo wasn’t around back then, but if he had been, I would’ve worshipped him!) This love of everything Italian became an obsession for my friends and me. It was so easy, and acceptable, to be Italian. First of all, Italians have a lot in common with Iranians. We both are dark-haired macho types who like to wear gold chains and show off our hairy chests. We both put a lot of emphasis on family and food. And we both live with our parents until we’re married. Add the fact that most Americans did not speak Italian and we were set. All we had to do was speak Persian with an Italian accent and women would be so impressed they would practically throw themselves at us. We just added an “a” or an “o” to the end of every word and threw in words like ciao and bella. We were careful not to use too many Persian words with the guttural “khhhh” sound in them. That would raise suspicion.