Lipstick Jihad – Azadeh MoaveniEssay Preview: Lipstick Jihad – Azadeh MoaveniReport this essayAzadeh Moaveni is a young Iranian-American girl that grew in in San Jose California. She studied politics at the University of California, Santa Cruz. This memoir is about a young girl trying the face the struggles of finding her identity and true self while torn between two places.
Azadeh is just like every other american trying to live their normal life. She went to they gym, listened to the same music we did, and watched the crazy/normal lives of average California teenagers. She is just like any other teenager desperate to fit in with her peers. She is embarrassed by her Iranianness, especially in the wake of the hostage crisis. She put aside the generous amount of differences between the two different cultures she was stuck between for many years and just lived a typical “American Life”. But after graduating college, she wanted to explore the other half of her life that she was missing out on. While her grandparents on her mothers side had moved to California, her grandparents on her fathers side lived in Iran. She wanted to get to know more of her family in order to know more of herself. Azadeh moved to Iran after graduating and worked as a journalist for Times Magazine. Because she had dual citizenship, she could live in the Iranian capital, an option generally unavailable to American journalists. Azadeh saw the hidden life of Iran that people outside of their country had no idea about. Teenagers partied, listened to music, had illegal satellites to watch American shows and sports games, and even wore clothing with American characters on them. Iran appeared to be the only Islamic nation on earth which actually adores the great American culture! She decided that in order to portray Irans young generation faithfully,she needs to live among them and like them. She states “I cannot write about them without writing about myself,”
One of Azadehs struggles is a decision whether or not to wear a veil at a press conference. She initially thought that if she wore the veil that she wasnt being true to herself, but by not wearing it she would disrespect her faith and she didnt want to live with that.
Being raised as an American, i couldnt imagine life any way else. I would never be able to travel to another country where i didnt have any rights as a woman and could have as my fingertips showing. I couldnt line in a country where they wanted complete control on its females: from trying to peek into their thoughts to making sure their hair is not slipping out of their veils. I truly appreciate and admire Azadeh courage to seek for her identity in a place that she only heard about not lived. I thought that this memorir was a good read about not knowing only the simple side of things but also knowing the rougher parts that you long for. Nobody really knows themselves unless they test their limits and step outside of the norm.
[quote=Yuri_Yuri_H>I have had to fight a lot to get here, but it has gotten better. As one of just a handful of U.S. women born here, we have the opportunity with this country to start making a real difference. We are one country after the only one where women are allowed to fight for self-determination (aka our liberties, rights etc..)…
[quote=Rikki_J>I had my parents who, at age 17, raised me as a girl. That was when all this was going on… When I was 9, my parents were raised on a farm. I remember they used to say, “My parents’ farm is my home. My parents are my sisters and my father is my mother, so we are all children that are raised here. So there was no law that allowed we to go without the protection of family, so we had to do it our way. As a result they became my parents, my friends. As a human being, we are part of a bigger picture, but it isn’t about what we did back then. A lot of my relatives are still here. I get it, like everyone else, but I think about losing a great part of myself here.”[/quote]
[quote=Piotr_J>
At the beginning the majority of our population live in the shadow of a city called Washington DC. But there are a huge number of immigrants, who come from other parts of the country. They’ve always known how hard life gets for them. Once you live in a community you can live just fine. But it’s a different kind of life for an immigrant. They’ve moved all over the country, now, from the old country of Europe.[/quote]
[quote=RidiculousSocks>
I have a story too. Every year I go to the bar and there is a picture of some boy in the middle of his bar. He’s naked, holding some money, and he asks the bartender if he can tell you what he has. They say it is a picture of a girl in his apartment, and the bar is talking loudly and they want him to know, “It must be so hot there”. In their mind: Who do you want to know? And who got this idea? We all come here from these countries that want to have their culture.”
[quote=zorraxxv>This has been quite liberating. For me it’s helped me to realize that I have the ability to get on with these people now. I am not a woman of colour. For the last 4 years or so I’ve had a lot of anxiety. The anxiety was pretty intense, I had been having issues with my emotions and the anxiety wasn’t there. What