fbpx

Oh, to be young and stupid again

I was 21 years old, a first-year law student at USC, when I walked by a trailer parked on an empty lot off McCarthy Way on the downtown campus. It was late afternoon, and I was on my way home; I only noticed the trailer because it was such an anomaly among the red brick buildings surrounding it. The door was open, and I could hear voices inside, and I saw a young man with dark skin and a sparse, reddish beard standing amid a mess of paper on the floor.
[additional-authors]
November 2, 2011

I was 21 years old, a first-year law student at USC, when I walked by a trailer parked on an empty lot off McCarthy Way on the downtown campus. It was late afternoon, and I was on my way home; I only noticed the trailer because it was such an anomaly among the red brick buildings surrounding it. The door was open, and I could hear voices inside, and I saw a young man with dark skin and a sparse, reddish beard standing amid a mess of paper on the floor.

“Come on in,” he said, like the big, bad wolf in the story, and I did.

There was a maroon yard-sale couch, a creaky desk chair with no desk, a few stacks of books, a tall man wearing a brown-leather jacket, black socks and no shoes. He introduced himself as “the director,” and the young man, Michael, as “the program specialist.” They welcomed me to the “program offices,” offered to answer my questions, handed me a one-page application, and I still had no idea where I was, what “program” they were talking about or why “the director” had no shoes.

It turned out that he was James Ragan, a noted poet who had recently taken over the then-fledgling Masters of Professional Writing Program at USC. In retrospect, that just about explained everything, including the modesty of the premises; I promise you the law school deans all had desks and wore shoes at the office. Then again, I had met many a lawyer and dean and professor in my life; I’d never met a poet. Nor had I imagined there were schools that trained people to become writers, or that anyone in his right mind would actually decide he was going to be one. All the writers I’d ever heard of had either committed suicide or stabbed or shot someone. They were depressives and alcoholics; they died young in car accidents or were put in jail and tortured by their governments and then thrown out of helicopters into marshlands.

You have to remember this was before every university and community college and online school discovered that there are more writers in the world than readers, and that every one of those writers can use some instruction, and can create what a literary-minded friend of mine calls “a booklike object,” and that some of those booklike objects go on to become classics or mega-sellers or, at the very least, a safe hobby. And it was before most nice Iranian-Jewish girls like me wanted to grow up to have a profession, as well as a family. And, yes, I was young and stupid and didn’t know just what a risk I was taking, but a few weeks after I made my great discovery, I dropped out of law school and signed up at the trailer.

The jury’s still out on whether this was a good idea in the long run, but I’m forever grateful to James Ragan for encouraging me to write, and grateful to the stars for putting him on my path.

I was reminded of this a couple of Sundays ago, when I went to Orange County for the Iranian-American Women’s Leadership Conference — 680 professional women, 40 speakers, every last one of them impressive and accomplished in her field. It wasn’t the first time I’d been to an event like this, but I found myself having an especially good time and feeling unusually inspired. Late in the day, I went to thank Maryam Khosravani, the brain and the force behind the conference, for inviting me. I heard myself say that the gathering had been a revelation to me, which was true, though it would take a while longer for me to figure out why, and some more time after that to admit it to myself: These women were all Iranian.

The last time I was surrounded by nearly 700 Iranian professional women was — I’ve been raking my mind about this for over a week — never. I’ve known for a long time that there are thousands of brilliant, successful Iranians in this county, but it never occurred to me that so many of them could be women. I’m talking about senior executive positions at the World Bank and Boeing and Texas Instruments and Genentech; about directorships at major research medical centers and universities. It’s not as if any of these people had been hiding herself all these years; it’s more like I had taken an idea with me out of Iran, when I left in 1973, and carried it around for the next 38 years till I happened to go to the Hilton in Costa Mesa. In between, I’ve had a vague idea that leaving Iran has been the best thing that could have happened to Iranian women, but that was mostly because of rights issues and family traditions. And I’ve witnessed the endless hyperbole and unrestrained self-promotion generated by a few women, but, as is often the case, the ones who scream loudest have the least to boast of.

For me, the existence of so many accomplished Iranian women puts the lie to the image so many Angelenos have of Iranian women as being either oppressed and unhappy, or bored, infantile and overly comfortable. It was proof that while some of us might have stayed in a high-school frame of mind well into our 30s and 40s, struggling to be liked and accepted by the “cool” girls or to date and marry the rich boys, and while many of us expect too little of ourselves and our daughters, many more have gone on to scale great heights.

I’m so glad I had a chance to look through this other door, and that the people inside invited me in. Right before I left, I went up to Parisa Khosravi, senior vice president of international news gathering for CNN Worldwide, and told her that in my youth, I had dreamt of becoming a reporter, only I had no idea that an Iranian girl like me could grow up to become a woman like her. I only hope that our children’s generation has a better eye for all the open doors and all the magical figures that reside beyond them.

Did you enjoy this article?
You'll love our roundtable.

Editor's Picks

Latest Articles

Print Issue: Got College? | Mar 29, 2024

With the alarming rise in antisemitism across many college campuses, choosing where to apply has become more complicated for Jewish high school seniors. Some are even looking at Israel.

More news and opinions than at a
Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.

More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.

More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.