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She knew how to swing her legs on that hyphen that defined and denied who she was: Iranian-American. Neither the first word nor the second really belonged to her. Her place was on the hyphen, and on the hyphen she would stay, carrying memories of the one place from which she had come and the other place in which she must succeed. The hyphen was hers—a space small, potentially precarious. On the hyphen she would sit and on the hyphen she would stand and soon, like a seasoned acrobat, she would balance there perfectly, never falling, never choosing either side over the other, content with
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“My kids tell me I’m wrong, old-fashioned, too Westernized. Sometimes it feels like my children aren’t even mine anymore. It’s become like they’re theirs. Children of their propaganda.”
All of this—the long hair under that scarf, her round bottom, the tiniest hint of developing breasts—was considered a threat now. She had to cover up for school by law. Her body had become a liability.
“It’s always through the women that the men express their agenda. Now she has to cover up so they can feel like they’re in power.”
“Religion is a crutch for the weak. An escape. An illusion. A means to get manipulated. Don’t get sucked into the propaganda!”
saw that the definitions of things like “history,” “good,” and “bad” shifted depending on who was in power.
Mina realized that whoever had access to dispensing information drew and colored the world.
“We are not ourselves anymore. We are damaged souls. Everyone you see in this country has been pushed to the limit. Those years of bombs. The needless deaths. This surreal life. We have become that which we were always proud not to be before. Badbakht. Destitute.”
She had spent most of her life balancing between cultures, never really quite at home. But with him, right here, under this vast, beautiful tree, she was home. With him, she felt she finally belonged.
Sometimes I think to belong everywhere is to really belong nowhere.
How long had she floated precariously on that hyphen that separated the place where she had her childhood and the place where she now lived? How long had she hovered, never feeling at home on either side of that hyphen?
