Is it possible to leave one’s old life behind and start over in a different country? How hard is it for a person to realize they no longer belong to the country they grew up in, given that it is going through the stage of tremendous change? Ramin Dabiri knows the answers to these questions from his personal experience of immigrating from Iran to the United States at the young age of 24. His native country was shaken by the revolution that boosted the immigration level of the 1980s, as people sought a better quality of life and job opportunities that the United States had to offer. Ramin’s story proves that difficult times are inevitable for those who immigrate to a completely different culture, but those who are fortunate to power through will be rewarded beyond expectation.
The first question was about Ramin’s experience of living in his native country and how it led to immigration to the United States. Fortunately, Ramin spoke very fondly of his homeland, so it was possible to gather many interesting facts about his past life there. Ramin was born in Karaj, Iran, in 1961 in a loving family and had many friends, as well as prosperous social life. Ramin was always a very outgoing person and traveled around Iran with his family, getting many acquaintances along the way. After graduating from school, he entered the university in Tehran and earned his bachelor’s degree in economics. He had a fiancee and worked as a manager in a manufacturing company. However, the Iranian Revolution events made it difficult for him to continue to lead his normal life.
The revolutionary events shook the country and the whole Muslim world, bringing change and destruction to the peaceful Iranian population. Just a few decades before, in the 1960s and 1970s, Iran was considered by the Western world to be one of the most progressive and secular countries in the Muslim region. The state was an important foreign policy ally of the United States and Israel. Just one the calendar year of 1979 dramatically changed the country’s fate. The politicized clergy, referring to the norms of the Koran, demanded a complete reconstruction of Iranian society according to medieval Muslim norms. The introduction of Western culture provoked protests from the Islamic population that regarded the whole Western civilization as the root of all evil. As a result, Iran became the first state where radical Islamists gained power because of the revolution, resolving conflicts with terror and intimidation. Fearing the violation of fundamental human rights and his own life, Ramin decided to leave Iran and move to the United States.
The immigration process became one of the most challenging periods in Ramin’s life. At the age of 24, he found himself alone in a foreign country with a different language, culture, and people. He was fortunate to apply to the University of Michigan, where he obtained his master’s degree in applied economics. Ramin describes those times with both melancholy and joy – his first year in Michigan was a period of constant change and longing for home. His fiancée refused to leave Iran and her family, so they ended their relationship, not without a personal grudge and anguish. Ramin says, “I was so angry with her; she was stubborn and very attached to her family in Tehran. But I did not have any other choice but to leave, there was no place for me in Iran anymore.” Therefore, Ramin left his whole life behind, including family and friends. Fortunately, his personality attracted people, and he made many good friends with whom he still communicates from time to time. They are his fellow university groupmates and people he used to work with back in Michigan.
Therefore, his life became more exciting despite the problematic transitioning point after he got accustomed to the new environment. Even more so, Ramin recalls that period to be a good time in the United States for immigrants. They were treated with kindness and understanding, and Ramin himself experienced this warm welcome in a foreign country, especially given that he was a university student. He recollects the country’s unconstrained atmosphere back in the 1970s and 1980s when people were most accepting of the immigrants. Ramin also did not have trouble finding a good job and a place to live after graduation. All those fortunate events happened due to his advantage of obtaining a student visa. At the time, it was much easier for immigrants like him to apply for legal residence in the United States after entering an American college or university.
However, as he recollects, not every immigrant was as fortunate as he was. Many Iranian refugees could not obtain a legal refugee status if they did not speak English well or did not have a student or work visa. The situation became far worse later on when the political tension between Iran and America started to grow due to the Iranians’ hostility to the American embassy workers and the country in general. As a result, the anti-Iranian attitudes were gradually spreading among the American population, causing the scrutinization of immigrant statuses, not to mention racial hatred and unemployment of the lower-class immigrants. That is why Ramin has been so grateful for his luck and ability to stay in the country and work without major problems. He met his future wife, Kelly, when he was 29, and they got married in just a few months. Her family lived in Detroit, and she frequently came to visit them, so it was a happy set of circumstances that made the two young people meet and fall in love. After getting married, Ramin moved to New York, where his wife lived and worked.
Now, after almost 35 years, he describes his experience living in America as very positive. He and Kelly have two amazing daughters and three grandchildren who live in Brooklyn and come to see them every weekend. Ramin has worked in a large sales company for the majority of his life in New York City, and he is still full of energy and determination for his career. He says he is a very fortunate man to have a job he enjoys and a big loving family. Unfortunately, his parents refused to immigrate to the United States, even though he insisted on it many times in the past. They passed away years ago in their native country, and Ramin does not have any actual reason to visit Iran anymore. He says, “To tell you the truth, I do not want to. I have my whole life here, and I am always busy with work anyway.” After all these years, he does not regret leaving his home country. Now, his home is here in America, and he is happy he decided to immigrate.
To conclude, cultural adaptation is possible when an immigrant embraces difficulties and works on cultivating new relationships and grasping job opportunities. That is what happened to Ramin, but, as he mentioned many times during the conversation, he belonged to the immigrant class who was fortunate to obtain a student visa. Those who did not have to overcome many obstacles along the way in the country of immense opportunities and big racial controversies. In Ramin’s case, however, after years of happy marriage and working at a dream job, he feels completely comfortable and safe in the United States. Indeed, he did not forget his past life and his motherland, but now he has a new home. After all, as Elvis Presley sang, “Home is where the heart is.”