“When I was a kid, it was all about Malcolm X, 49ers and wrestling.”
Can you recall those early days growing up in Tehran? From the visuals, the sentiment, the history, everything.
I was born in the middle of the Iran-Iraq War — post-revolution.
One of my strengths is I have a really good memory. I’m a very visual person, I absorb the world and communicate the world visually. My dad was running the art department at Tehran University. My mom was one of the highest ranking art students in the country. That’s how they do it in Iran at the art schools — there’s this ranking system for entry into the schools for all fields.
My dad did sculptures, watercolors, graphic design and my mom worked on large-scale paintings in oil. They were both very involved in the revolution because so much of it happened at Tehran University.
My sharpest memories are taping our windows. My dad would throw me on his back and I would help tape the windows, because if there was a bombing and the shock blew your windows up, the tape helped it not shatter and break off.
I remember sirens going off and we’d go to our basement and just stay their for hours. Sometimes overnight. Then we’d get used to it and play. I have this scar on my forehead from running into a corner of our building, because we got petrified from the lights going off, all of a sudden, and we didn’t know why. I was like four-years-old.
My dad made the decision that we had to leave. He had some roots in the Bay Area, because he had come in the ‘50s with his best friend on a boat and got married and had kids, then went back to Iran. From there, we went to Turkey for almost a year, while my dad flew to Dubai to get our visas.
I grew up in this unique public housing project called the San Jose Gardens, which my dad’s best friend, my uncle Mo, helped get hundreds of Iranian families to this neighborhood. My upbringing was Iranians, Somalians, Eritreans, Ethiopians, East Africans, Mexicans, Black folks. I remember the first time I went to Los Angeles and met the LA Iranians, I was like, ‘This is crazy.’
If anything, I grew up seeing my parents stop making art. Inside my home, my mom was painting and my dad was still making sculptures at the beginning — working odd jobs and eventually my dad learned how to miniaturize his skills as an artist and sculptor, by repairing jewelry.
When you grow up in low income places, you don’t know people who are professional artists or journalists. You know people who are mechanics, drive the bus, or pizza delivery. So I never thought of being creative, even though I was a creative kid and was good at drawing. I used to write weird stories, but sports was where it was at for me.
I initially went to college to wrestle. I did that from age six to nineteen. That was, for me, a way to stay connected to my identity and culture. When I was a kid, it was all about Malcolm X, 49ers and wrestling. Those were my three biggest passions. But I think for a lot of Iranian kids at that time, you’re not really trying to tap into that. It’s kind of like these annoying things that your parents are doing, like getting you on the phone when they call back to Iran; or you’re insecure about how you smell, because you had some fucking ghorme sabzi.
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wazup.