Since almost all of my family lives in Iran, and doesn’t celebrate Thanksgiving, my mom, aunt, and I have the pleasure of going to a family friend’s house, who I consider family. Some of the guests there I only see once a year and others I get to see regularly when I visit home on the weekends and for holidays. I absolutely love all of them but there are a ton of topics, just like with other families, that are just too much.
1) Being Vegan
Even among my friends and classmates at Cal Lutheran this is a weird thing for me to be doing. So many people say I’m crazy and they don’t understand it. Thankfully my family is a little nicer about it. My aunt went out of her way to make me vegan Persian dessert, and I made myself food that I took there. But there were other people that always asked why? Why are you doing it? Don’t you still wear clothes that aren’t vegan? Even though it got annoying at times, they were only doing it to tease me and it was kind of funny. Being from a Persian family, being vegan is practically never heard of so it’s taking everyone some getting used to.
2) Participating in Political Rallies
A lot of my family members dealt with politics at a young age with the Iranian revolution. And since they’ve seen how bad it can get, it really freaks them out to see me at rallies. I’m glad to say we don’t really differ much in our politics and we all voted for the same candidate, but safety wise it worries them. Therefore, whenever that came up I would assure them everything was fine and we would move on. 3) My Tattoos
Besides my mom hating them, and my aunt asking when I’m going to stop getting more tattoos, everyone else liked them. They all said they were really pretty and noticed my new ones. But there’s still overall judgement regarding them and since my mom really doesn’t like them I try to dodge the subject and not get into it. 4) My Future Career
I used to have my entire future planned out, I was going to go to med school and become a plastic surgeon, and now that has completely changed. I want to do something that excites me and makes me happy. I just have no idea what that is. So whenever my family asks me what I see myself doing, I truly have no idea. I always try to turn it around and ask them how they’re liking their careers and work. 5) My Boyfriend??
Being in a relationship or not is the first question anyone asks me. I feel like this is a common theme with all college students. You come home and see everyone in your family and they all wonder what you’re doing at college and who you’re seeing. And when I say I don’t have a boyfriend there’s all these continuous comments of “but you’re so pretty and smart” or “how could no one want to date you?” As if I haven’t asked myself these questions. I automatically change the subject when this comes up. Even though there were some less than pleasant topics, all in all it was so amazing to get to see my family. I can’t wait until Christmas Break!