Americanized: Rebel without a Green Card

Ali Saedi is Sara’s father and the son of Mohammad Saedi and Maman Farideh. Sara describes her father as a kind, sentimental, and liberal man who does everything in his power to make his family happy.

Ali is born in Iran and attends college at Louisiana State University. In 1974 he agrees to an arranged marriage with Shohreh, and it proves to be a happy and loving union. In 1982, they immigrate to the United States because of the oppressive political and religious situation in Iran. Ali’s involvement in overthrowing the Shah is indicative both of his loyalty to his country and his liberal politics, which come to define him. However, while these causes are important, it is his family that is most important to Ali, and he proves this again and again throughout his daughter’s memoir.

Ali’s family enters the United States on visitor’s visas and apply for political asylum, but their journey is anything but easy. Like many American immigrants, Ali is willing to sacrifice endlessly to help his family settle in this new country. This is exemplified repeatedly throughout Sara Saedi’s recollections, like his decisions to divorce his wife to expedite the green card process and sell their home to afford to send his eldest daughter to college. While Saedi makes these sacrifices willingly, they are often at the expense of his own happiness; this is especially evident when he tells his daughter he hates his life. The persistent pressure of obtaining legal citizenship is taxing, amplified by the responsibility he feels as a caregiver and provider.

Ali’s liberal nature helps the family to acclimate more easily to American life than might be the case for other Iranian immigrants. For example, his leniency regarding drugs, religion, and dating all diverge strongly from more traditional Iranian families. As Sara alludes constantly throughout the memoir, she is the product of her family, and it is this aspect of her father’s personality, in part, that shapes some of the attributes she is most proud of, like her wit and strong will. 

Shohreh Saedi is Sara’s mother and the youngest daughter of Ata Baba and Maman Soury. Born in Iran, Shohreh agrees to an arranged marriage with Ali when she is 19 years old. In 1982, she immigrates to the United States with her two young daughters, Sara and her older sister, Samira. Ali joins them a few months later, and they settle in California, where they own and work in a luggage store. Like Ali, Shohreh is willing to make limitless sacrifice to help her children make it in America.

Sara describes her mother as a strong and resourceful woman who provides wise guidance about life and love. Sara also appreciates her mother’s capacity for empathy—a trait that also defines Sara and serves as the objective of her memoir—and willingness to let her children try new experiences and lead independent lives. In Sara’s memoir, Shohreh plays the stereotypical role of a decidedly American mom, sitting Sara down to talk about love and life and giving her realistic advice, such as when she tells Sara not to settle on someone who does not love her. However, like Sara herself, Shohreh is defined by the complexity of her existence. She is still Iranian, and while she does largely embody the mold of the American mom, there are ways in which she does not, such as her reluctance to speak about sex or birth control. 

Samira is Sara’s older sister and, at the outset of the memoir, the person who first tells Sara that they are undocumented immigrants. This introduction quickly classifies Samira as a source of wisdom and knowledge, and it is a role she continues to occupy throughout the course of Sara Saedi’s memoir.

As children, Sara and Samira fight often, but this changes once Sara enters high school. Sara admires her sister’s popularity and confidence at school, and she feels proud to be her little sister with the nickname “Little Sami.” Sara describes Samira as her best friend, and they remain close even as adults.

As is typical of any older sibling, Samira is the first to try new experiences, but her position as a first-generation American amplifies this newness. Sara also utilizes the experience of Samira to exemplify the precariousness and danger of such a position. For example, in Samira’s trip to Mexico, what would be a typical exchange between a rebellious American teenager and her younger sister becomes more fraught with the hidden dangers of their position. Similarly, Samira’s risk of “aging out” of her parents’ visa before receiving a green card further indicates the more dire aspects of her experience, distancing her from other American teenagers. 

Sara’s younger brother, Kia is born in the United States and is an American citizen by birthright. Whereas Sara and Samira are—consciously and subconsciously—weighed down by the perils of their undocumented citizenship, which vies with their personal identity as Americans, Kai is free to simply be American. He is eight years younger than Sara, and at an early age Sara adopts a maternal and protective attitude towards him. Sara describes Kia as a sensitive and thoughtful person, which she partially attributes to her caregiving. This is likely in contrast to most traditional Iranian men, as the patriarchal society grants them great leniency in their emotional range. 

Sara’s paternal grandmother, Maman Farideh is born in France. When she is young, her mother dies, and her father takes her to Iran where she enters an arranged marriage with Mohammad Saedi (Pedar John) at the age of 15. Maman Farideh has four children; Sara’s father is the second born. After Maman Farideh’s oldest son and husband die, she becomes a devout Muslim. Sara describes her grandmother as stubborn and independent, and she regularly drives Sara crazy when she visits her in California. Maman Farideh dies from sustained injuries in a hit-and-run accident in Iran. Sara wishes she appreciated her grandmother more when she was alive.

By including the story of Farideh, Saedi further riffs on the complexity of the human existence, even for those whom we perceive as stereotypical icons. Saedi herself is annoyed by her grandmother’s cliched behavior, but she comes to appreciate her more once she understands her history and the ways it shaped her. Farideh is also one of several representatives of empowered womanhood in Saedi’s book and family, women from whom she gained her own sense of empowerment (so much so that she assumes a version of herself living in Iran would be the same). 

Mansoureh Naficy is Sara’s maternal grandmother. When Maman Soury is 23 years old, she enters an arranged marriage with a man whom she meets for the first time during the wedding ceremony. Maman Soury and her husband have three children, and even though her husband is caring, she is not attracted to him. Instead, she falls in love with and marries her husband’s nephew, Ata Baba. They have five children together, but it is a tumultuous marriage as Ata Baba has many affairs. Sara’s mother is the youngest daughter of their union.

Maman Soury is another in Sara Saedi’s long line of independent, somewhat radical women ancestors. Maman Soury—like every—and her decisions and their outcomes are similarly complex. For example, her decision to follow her heart and marry Ata Baba is admirable and romantic, but it is not a simple love story; this decision engenders its own kind of heartbreak and betrayal. In Maman Soury, as in everyone’s life, there is no polarity, no right or wrong, no perfectly fulfilled stereotype; there is just complicated, messy life. But her autonomy and agency determine the course of her family’s lives, including our narrator’s.

Maman Soury dies on Christmas Eve, an event that likely saves the lives of Sara and Samira as they avoid a house fire by staying up late remembering their grandmother. Sara describes her grandmother as ambitious, strong-willed, and brave and respects her unconventional choices.