I first immigrated to the United States
when I was six years old from Iran now
from for those of you who aren’t
familiar Iran is the second largest
country in the Middle East I located in
Western Asia and so since then I’ve
moved back and forth and each time that
I come back to the states I get a lot of
questions which range from do you ride
camels don’t you live in the middle of
the desert do you speak Arabic don’t you
have to wear those burkas when you go
out in the streets and most recently
when are you going to tell your people
to stop being terrorists now when I was
a kid I kind of got confused about these
questions and moved on but as I grew
older I started to become more
frustrated and because of how inaccurate
these questions were and I started to
question what made these people think
this way and the longer I stayed in the
United States the more that I realized
that a lot of these misconceptions were
coming from what they were seeing in the
media whether it was a Hollywood movie
or the news or even a politician so I
wanted to go over a few of these
misconceptions that I’ve seen over the
years and give you a little insight of
my own personal experiences from living
in the Middle East so a few general
misconceptions that I’ve seen over the
years that have been associated with the
Middle East have been beards burkas
billionaires and their fancy cars and
Isis now Hollywood also has a tendency
of associating their middle-eastern
characters with being terrorists such
depicted in showtimes the sleeper cell
and homeland and also The Dictator movie
now who here has seen the movie 300 oh
wow
few of you awesome so for those of you
who haven’t 300 actually came out
roughly ten years ago and it was about
the epic battle between three
hundreds pardons that went off to fight
the great big Persian Empire of the time
now while I love that movie and I
actually cried at the end I also
realized that there were some false
depictions regarding the Persian culture
and Empire of the time now a few of
these depictions were that they showed
our women as Arabic belly dancers they
also dressed our army and commonly known
Arab attire and they completely
inaccurately showed how King Xerxes
should have looked like historically now
they also had a section of our army that
were called the Immortals and we’re
basically creature like so this movie
showed Persians as being Arabic exotic
and basically non-human now the news
outlets also have a tendency of invoking
Islamophobia to the public and
associating middle-eastern people with
being jihadi extremists by writing
headlines such as jihadi extremists on
our streets now shoo simply tell ha me
from the Brookings Institute conducted a
poll that span from 2001 to 2015 and in
that poll she asked Americans how they
felt about Islam and Muslims and whether
they found it favorable or unfavorable
now in 2001 right after the 9/11 attacks
39 percent of the people that she asked
found the religion to be unfavorable now
that percentage rose to 61 percent in
2015 now I can bet you that that number
is even higher today so all of these
misconceptions and stereotypes that I’ve
talked to you so far they actually do
exist in areas of the Middle East but it
does not represent us as a whole now
what a lot of people don’t know is is
that the Middle East is come
of 18 countries five major languages
including Arabic Persian Turkish Kurdish
and Hebrew with twenty minority
languages and seventeen different ethnic
groups so it’s a very diverse area now
another misconception is that people
associated the Middle East with the
Islamic state now what a lot of people
don’t know is that out of all the
Muslims in the world which comprise
almost 1/4 of the human population most
of them don’t even live in the Middle
East and they are not Arab in fact as of
today the country with the most Muslim
population is Indonesia which is located
in Southeast Asia so I believe that with
the current climate that we have towards
Middle Eastern culture and religion that
is more important now than ever to
become informed about the area so I said
it as my goal that whenever anyone asked
me about Iran I would sit down with them
show them pictures and show them my
experiences and how I view the country
which is what I’m going to do for you
today
so this is our streets as you can see we
do not ride camels I actually lived in
the capital that has over 13 million
people so I to deal with a lot of cars a
lot of skyscrapers and a lot of people
now the common attire for a millennial
girl is modern and artistic I’ve
actually never seen anyone wear a burka
in the streets now while we do have
deserts in the south we also have
beautiful mountain ranges in the north
and northwest of the country our
architecture dates back to over 2000
years we we throw killer parties and
that there’s nonstop music and laughter
and dancing
and eating and if you go out at 2:00
a.m. on a Thursday night
you’ll probably be stuck in traffic
because everyone’s coming back from
their family gatherings and parties that
they’ve been to we also have an ax cat
and Academy award-winning director named
Asghar Farhadi we have a wide variety of
foods and sweets that are central to our
hospitable culture and if you’ve ever
been to a Persian household you know
that once you’re there you’re not
allowed to put your fork down and I
remember the last time I visited in Iran
I gained 10 pounds and only two months
and it’s because of what you see behind
me so very central now girls there can
vote and drive and date there’s actually
more women enrolled in higher level
education than met especially in the
STEM careers now when I lived in Iran I
lived across from a synagogue I
we knew many people that were of
Christian and Jewish faith oh and now
that all of our men have long beards you
see the people of Iran are hospitable
and diverse and amongst the most
intellectual people in the world we are
so much more than our government or how
are portrayed in the media this is my
Iran now every time I show someone these
pictures or I tell them about my
experiences I get the exact same
response which is I had no idea however
I’m not going to stand here and say that
I’m immune to falling to these
misconceptions myself
for example I’ve never been to Palestine
and so from what I’ve seen in the media
I’ve always had a war-torn country and
an image
a war-torn country in my head but one of
my friends is actually from there and
she got to visit recently and I got to
see the country through her eyes and
what I saw was their breathtaking nature
their extravagant weddings and how
progressive the culture is and now every
time I think about Palestine I have a
different image in my head and I owe it
to her story so I’ve gone through a few
of the misconceptions that are
associated with Middle Eastern culture
and religion and I’ve also given you an
insight of my own experiences because I
believe that to really understand the
world we need to start a conversation
we can’t allow a biased lens to tell us
how other people live and how other
cultures are we either need to
experience it for ourselves or talk to
someone who’s been there conversations
are crucial to reaching out and escaping
the blind stereotypes that I’ve taken
center stage in this modern age thank
you [Applause]
when I was six years old from Iran now
from for those of you who aren’t
familiar Iran is the second largest
country in the Middle East I located in
Western Asia and so since then I’ve
moved back and forth and each time that
I come back to the states I get a lot of
questions which range from do you ride
camels don’t you live in the middle of
the desert do you speak Arabic don’t you
have to wear those burkas when you go
out in the streets and most recently
when are you going to tell your people
to stop being terrorists now when I was
a kid I kind of got confused about these
questions and moved on but as I grew
older I started to become more
frustrated and because of how inaccurate
these questions were and I started to
question what made these people think
this way and the longer I stayed in the
United States the more that I realized
that a lot of these misconceptions were
coming from what they were seeing in the
media whether it was a Hollywood movie
or the news or even a politician so I
wanted to go over a few of these
misconceptions that I’ve seen over the
years and give you a little insight of
my own personal experiences from living
in the Middle East so a few general
misconceptions that I’ve seen over the
years that have been associated with the
Middle East have been beards burkas
billionaires and their fancy cars and
Isis now Hollywood also has a tendency
of associating their middle-eastern
characters with being terrorists such
depicted in showtimes the sleeper cell
and homeland and also The Dictator movie
now who here has seen the movie 300 oh
wow
few of you awesome so for those of you
who haven’t 300 actually came out
roughly ten years ago and it was about
the epic battle between three
hundreds pardons that went off to fight
the great big Persian Empire of the time
now while I love that movie and I
actually cried at the end I also
realized that there were some false
depictions regarding the Persian culture
and Empire of the time now a few of
these depictions were that they showed
our women as Arabic belly dancers they
also dressed our army and commonly known
Arab attire and they completely
inaccurately showed how King Xerxes
should have looked like historically now
they also had a section of our army that
were called the Immortals and we’re
basically creature like so this movie
showed Persians as being Arabic exotic
and basically non-human now the news
outlets also have a tendency of invoking
Islamophobia to the public and
associating middle-eastern people with
being jihadi extremists by writing
headlines such as jihadi extremists on
our streets now shoo simply tell ha me
from the Brookings Institute conducted a
poll that span from 2001 to 2015 and in
that poll she asked Americans how they
felt about Islam and Muslims and whether
they found it favorable or unfavorable
now in 2001 right after the 9/11 attacks
39 percent of the people that she asked
found the religion to be unfavorable now
that percentage rose to 61 percent in
2015 now I can bet you that that number
is even higher today so all of these
misconceptions and stereotypes that I’ve
talked to you so far they actually do
exist in areas of the Middle East but it
does not represent us as a whole now
what a lot of people don’t know is is
that the Middle East is come
of 18 countries five major languages
including Arabic Persian Turkish Kurdish
and Hebrew with twenty minority
languages and seventeen different ethnic
groups so it’s a very diverse area now
another misconception is that people
associated the Middle East with the
Islamic state now what a lot of people
don’t know is that out of all the
Muslims in the world which comprise
almost 1/4 of the human population most
of them don’t even live in the Middle
East and they are not Arab in fact as of
today the country with the most Muslim
population is Indonesia which is located
in Southeast Asia so I believe that with
the current climate that we have towards
Middle Eastern culture and religion that
is more important now than ever to
become informed about the area so I said
it as my goal that whenever anyone asked
me about Iran I would sit down with them
show them pictures and show them my
experiences and how I view the country
which is what I’m going to do for you
today
so this is our streets as you can see we
do not ride camels I actually lived in
the capital that has over 13 million
people so I to deal with a lot of cars a
lot of skyscrapers and a lot of people
now the common attire for a millennial
girl is modern and artistic I’ve
actually never seen anyone wear a burka
in the streets now while we do have
deserts in the south we also have
beautiful mountain ranges in the north
and northwest of the country our
architecture dates back to over 2000
years we we throw killer parties and
that there’s nonstop music and laughter
and dancing
and eating and if you go out at 2:00
a.m. on a Thursday night
you’ll probably be stuck in traffic
because everyone’s coming back from
their family gatherings and parties that
they’ve been to we also have an ax cat
and Academy award-winning director named
Asghar Farhadi we have a wide variety of
foods and sweets that are central to our
hospitable culture and if you’ve ever
been to a Persian household you know
that once you’re there you’re not
allowed to put your fork down and I
remember the last time I visited in Iran
I gained 10 pounds and only two months
and it’s because of what you see behind
me so very central now girls there can
vote and drive and date there’s actually
more women enrolled in higher level
education than met especially in the
STEM careers now when I lived in Iran I
lived across from a synagogue I
we knew many people that were of
Christian and Jewish faith oh and now
that all of our men have long beards you
see the people of Iran are hospitable
and diverse and amongst the most
intellectual people in the world we are
so much more than our government or how
are portrayed in the media this is my
Iran now every time I show someone these
pictures or I tell them about my
experiences I get the exact same
response which is I had no idea however
I’m not going to stand here and say that
I’m immune to falling to these
misconceptions myself
for example I’ve never been to Palestine
and so from what I’ve seen in the media
I’ve always had a war-torn country and
an image
a war-torn country in my head but one of
my friends is actually from there and
she got to visit recently and I got to
see the country through her eyes and
what I saw was their breathtaking nature
their extravagant weddings and how
progressive the culture is and now every
time I think about Palestine I have a
different image in my head and I owe it
to her story so I’ve gone through a few
of the misconceptions that are
associated with Middle Eastern culture
and religion and I’ve also given you an
insight of my own experiences because I
believe that to really understand the
world we need to start a conversation
we can’t allow a biased lens to tell us
how other people live and how other
cultures are we either need to
experience it for ourselves or talk to
someone who’s been there conversations
are crucial to reaching out and escaping
the blind stereotypes that I’ve taken
center stage in this modern age thank
you [Applause]
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