What It’s Like to Have Forefathers

“Baba,” I told my father in Persian a year after we arrived in the United States, “My teacher says I have four fathers.”

Upon hearing this, my mother looked a little nervous.

“Was your teacher referring to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and … me?” my father asked.

“She doesn’t go to a Jewish school, remember?” my mother said. “They’re not going to teach her those things. Maybe it’s some Christian value.”

“I think Christians have a father, a son and one more name, I forget which one, but she doesn’t go to a Christian school, either,” my father said. 

They were both right. I attended a wonderful public school, made even more wonderful by the fact that it was free.

“Well, you must have heard wrong, Tabby. You have one father, although he eats as much watermelon as four.” 

“No!” I snapped. “She said I have four fathers and then she showed me paintings of a bunch of old men wearing white wigs.”

I couldn’t fathom how I was related to these men. Brown-skinned and brown-eyed, my father boasted a full head of black, curly hair, as did nearly every ancestor I’d ever heard about.

“Can I borrow a picture of grandpa to take to school?” I asked. The picture showed my grandfather wearing a fez and standing next to a Persian rug hanging from the ceiling. “Maybe my teacher thinks I was adopted by old, American men. I can show her my real fathers.”

“Wait a minute!” my father said. “Did she say any names like George Washington or George Jefferson?” My father had learned a lot about American culture while studying abroad in New England in the mid-1970s, and his primary source of education was television.

“I think so,” I said. “I think there was a ‘George’ in there.”

“Then she didn’t mean ‘four fathers,’ but ‘forefathers’! This is the word Americans use for the founders of this country,” my father declared excitedly.

She said I have four fathers and then she showed me paintings of a bunch of old men wearing white wigs.

I had a lot of questions. When did these forefathers live? What kind of leaders were they? And what could I, a Jew whose family had lived in the Middle East for 2,700 years, possibly have in common with men who most likely had never met a Persian or maybe even a Jew?

“Why does my teacher think I’m related to these people?” I asked my father. In hindsight, his answer expressed a hope that some Americans still long for today:

“Because the people who founded this country wanted it to belong to everyone who lives here.” 

That sounded noble but I still wasn’t convinced. Those men looked ancient.

“But I didn’t live here when they were alive,” I protested. “We just came here last year.”

In my 8-year-old understanding of history, statehood and democracy, I couldn’t fathom how 214 years before, the forefathers could have set up this miraculous country with a little Persian Jewish girl and her family in mind. I thought for a long time, then asked, “Baba, are we American?”

“Technically no. Not yet. But we’re American up here,” he said, pointing to his head. “You and your sister are going to get the best education here. You’ll have total freedom. You’ll move forward, instead of backward.”

“OK. I’ll try to be American up here,” I said, pointing to my head.

A few days later, my mother banged on the bathroom door, wondering what I’d been doing in there for 45 minutes. Little did she know that I’d used Elmer’s glue to stick together every single cotton ball she owned to make a white curly wig.

I wore it on my head during Shabbat dinner.

“Did you know we have forefathers?” I asked my cousins. I then pointed to the wig and explained being American “up here.”

That night, we recited ancient Hebrew prayers, ate Persian delicacies and watched Barbara Walters discuss critical American issues on “20/20” before changing the channel to a Lakers game.

Happy Fourth of July.

Tabby Refael is a Los Angeles-based writer, speaker and activist.