I didn’t know I was a person of color
Written by Talia Bina
I’ve always known that who I am will change with growth and time, though I’ve always felt that my core would remain the same. I will always be the INFJ. The sassy yet introverted woman who pretends not to care but cares too much. A lover of all things health and psychology. A determined individual whose heart belongs to pen and paper. However, until college, I didn’t realize that a part of me had been unexplored, the part of me that has come to be the most important.
I had always felt confident in my skin, never ashamed of my culture because I grew up in a bubble where everyone was the same as me. When I got to college, I realized there was a whole world out there where people were different than me. For the first time, I realized I was considered a minority. I didn’t know if I should use the term Persian or Iranian to identify myself, and I was afraid of saying my family is from Iran because, well, Iran isn’t viewed so positively in the U.S. Unknown to most people, my family escaped Iran due to religious persecution. They had to disconnect their roots, and while they can’t say that they love Iran, they always express how they miss the fresh Barbari bread sold on the streets and the view of the mountaintops from the city where they grew up. I grew up hearing references that “this tastes just like how it was in Iran,” knowing that’s a compliment for a delicious tasting pastry or fresh fruit. But at the same time, they hold onto the trauma and pain they endured during their adolescence and that keeps them arm’s length away from the place they once called home.
But these misconceptions erase the truth behind the lives of Iranians. I love our Persian culture and there hasn’t been a time where I haven’t. If anything, I have always wanted to embrace it — even more, trying to make desserts with rosewater and pistachios and buying textbooks to learn how to read and write in Farsi. But there have been so many times where I have stopped and questioned, How do people really see me? The words of others have stopped me in my tracks:
“You’re not a person of color — your skin isn’t that dark.”
“When you fill out a form, you check off the box ‘white,’ so you’re white. Middle Eastern is your ethnicity, but your race is white.”
“You don’t look Jewish.”
“I never let white students recite that poem. But actually, you can.”
These comments have stuck with me, engraved in my memory followed by my pages and pages of questions. I didn’t know being Jewish had a look. I didn’t know that my skin tone meant I’m not a person of color. I didn’t know that I counted as a person of color. I didn’t know what being a person of color entailed. I didn’t know that people see me in so many different ways. I had never had to pay attention to it before college.
The real world changed that. Parachute changed that. I now know who I am, really know who I am, and I’m quite proud of who I am. I am a Persian Jewish Gen Z woman. I am a woman of color. I am a Middle Eastern woman. I know now what it means to be a person of color, that the checkbox on the forms means nothing when there isn’t even an option for me to be honest. As Hanin Najjar says in her article “I’m Middle Eastern, Not White,” “Americans of Middle Eastern descent are caught in the middle, not seen as white, but also not seen as people of color — white without the privilege.” Unfortunately, I, too, fall into that middle zone, and so does every other Middle Eastern individual, and many times without even knowing it.
I’ve realized that the oblivion was the worst part. I didn’t even know that my identity had fallen through the cracks. Even when I interviewed for Parachute, I hesitated and questioned if I counted as a person of color. I felt as though I was cheating some sort of system, a system where being Persian didn’t count as anything.
Now I know that being Persian counts as everything. Being Middle Eastern doesn’t have a look, but it does have an unspoken, deeper connection. Whether it’s the never-ending hair growth (thanks, Middle Eastern genes), an accent where “e” comes before every English word that starts with “s” (don’t worry, Mom, I love when you say “Estarbucks”) or simply the fact that we consume rice almost every day of the week — there is an essence in us that is powerful and unites us.
To all the confused, misunderstood Persian individuals out there: your confusion is real and reasonable. There isn’t a box that exists for us and perhaps, it’s because for now, there is no box big enough to put us in.
Photo by @sivanphotography_ on Instagram
