Comments and personal reflections on "The Limits of Whiteness"

[safianna_omalley]

This chapter by Neda Maghbouleh rang true to many of my memories of my mother's parents, especially my grandfather. He would boast about the great accomplishments of the Ancient Persians, and insisted that my younger brother be named Cyrus (after Cyrus the Great, of course). He absolutely played into the idea of "Persian exceptionalism," and it felt as though he legitimized his identity to my dad's (white) parents by distancing himself from Islam and the Arab Middle East. I wonder if his affinity for Ancient Persian history and an Aryan identity were amplified by his melancholia for a pre-revolutionary Iran, or perhaps just a strategy for easier integration into North American society.
I also resonated with Donya's story of childhood bullying in this chapter. I am only half Iranian and my father is white Canadian, but growing up in a very white area of Toronto (the Beaches), my Iranian features did not go unnoticed. My big curly hair, unibrow and hairy arms made me a target for bullying, leaving me confused about my racial identity. I now consider myself white, knowing that some people see me that way and some do not, but at the time I felt distinctively not quite white.