A few years ago, over lunch, a friend of mine asked me how I would rank my identities. I almost immediately responded with, “definitely Londoner first and foremost” and then I hesitated. Which identity would I rank next? I eventually settled on: Londoner, [child of] refugee, Iranian, British, with the latter two being interchangeable depending on my mood, who I am spending time with, and the political climate at the time.
Growing up, my mum always told my brother and I that we were lucky because we could pick and choose the most positive aspects of the two cultures we were brought up with (British and Iranian) and create our own unique and advanced way of interacting with the world and people. Having a hyphenated identity was always presented to me as a positive feature of mine and my - what seemed like hundreds of cousins who were not actually related to me - lives. However, I have not always felt that this was, or has been, the case.
Navigating two different cultures, belief systems, and expectations has felt like a burden at times. I have never felt that I have been able to fully integrate into either identity. When in Iran, my cousins tease me about my Persian accent and often ask me to repeat certain words while they giggle uncontrollably. My grandma tells people proudly that I’m Eengileesi and that is why I am so saadeh and dress the way I do. My uncle is pleasantly shocked every time I express my love for kharbaaze (which my grandma once hid in my mum’s suitcase for me when she was travelling back to London), as though a typical London girl like me couldn’t possibly have the faintest idea what this fruit could be. None of these things are said or done out of malice, if anything they are borne out of affection, yet they serve as a subtle and consistent reminder that I am different, that I am not one of them.
Outside of Iran, I still have no idea with which pronunciation of my name to introduce myself to people. Such a simple concept, right? Most people don’t give it a second thought, however, Bahar seems to be a difficult name to grasp for most Europeans. I was incessantly made fun of because of my name in school, especially when the Baha Men came out with their godforsaken song Who Let the Dogs Out and it left me wishing I was named something simple and pretty, like Sara, which offended my father who had so carefully picked out my inherently Persian name. My tanned skin and dark features prompts people to ask me about my heritage and to then continue on to ask me about what it’s like back ‘home’ – a question which has always left me feeling confused and sometimes even offended.
On the other hand, my hyphenated identity has opened doors and friendships to me that maybe I wouldn’t have been able to foster so easily had I not been brought up with two cultures. I find I’m more empathetic than the average and I am easily able to bond with individuals from all walks of life. I mould myself into the most appropriate version of me in the various social and professional situations I find myself in. Of course, this is not only due to my hyphenated identity, yet, I believe it plays a defining role in who I am today and my ability to adapt to my environment and the multiple worlds I am a part of.
Living in a different continent to the majority of my family for my whole life has created a nostalgia within me for something I have only experienced in snippets over the summers I visited Iran in my childhood. I live through the memories of my parents; I walk through the same streets in Tehran that they did forty years ago to learn more about myself and them. At the same time, I miss London every second that I am away from it. I miss the unique sarcastic, dry humour we British have, the tube, the fashion, the pubs, the expectation of stumbling across something new every time I enter a different neighbourhood. Most of all, I miss the diversity. You can meet people from polar opposite continents in the space of thirty seconds. You can eat Mexican food, drink a beer at the pub, buy pomegranates from a Turkish grocery store, watch an Iranian movie at the French Cultural Institute, and walk through Brick Lane where the road signs are written in Bengali all in the space of one day, and it’s beautiful.
There is beauty in being a Doganeh. There is beauty in diversity. I have spent the majority of my life wanting to fit in and be the same as everyone else around me, but in an era of ever-increasing intolerant rhetoric towards the ‘other’, I am unexpectedly finding beauty and pride in the complicated history of my identity. I wear it as a badge of honour. I only wish that as I was growing up, my peers with similar backgrounds would have encouraged me to do so, yet, we were all grappling with what it meant to have multiple identities and so we could not fully grasp and implement what our parents told us was beautiful about our multi-cultured characters.
And so, I find myself here, writing for the launch of Doganeh. A project close to my heart. A safe space for hyphenated Iranians to share their stories, anecdotes, and thoughts. A digital meeting room where we can exchange ideas and hopefully help those who feel a little lost find the beauty in their unique identities, and maybe, just maybe, even finally figure out how to navigate the complex art of taarof successfully.
Bahar Karimi