Thread by @prkaliush

Throwing this out there in hopes that someone can relate bc sometimes this experience is lonely and confusing …
I just went to apply for a #diversity training award and then stopped. Canceled my application. This is not the first time I’ve done this in my graduate career. 🧵

I am half Persian. My father fled to this country during the Iranian revolution w/ no money in his pocket. My mother is from Missouri. She and my father met, fell in love despite not speaking each others’ language, and eloped after 2 months of being together.

They were cut off from their families bc of this. And my father faced awful, violent discrimination in MO (read: car being flipped over and set on fire). Still, they persisted and fostered a loving environment for my brother and me. It wasn’t always stable, but it was loving.

It’s beautiful and confusing growing up multiethnic w/ an immigrant parent. I wasn’t like my White friends (they reminded me every day about my smelly lunches + unibrow 😅). And I wasn’t Persian enough (my father didn’t teach me Farsi bc he wanted me to be more American 😔).

And you live with this constant underlying guilt. The guilt is confusing and mixed w/ deep appreciation for the suffering your parent endured in order to give you life. This feeling sits heavy in your chest and sometimes is almost too much to bear. Everything I do is for my dad.

So now I’m an adult, still feeling confused about my identity (despite so many conversations about #DEI in my academic world). I have a fleeting thought that I could offer unique, underrepresented perspective, and I should apply for this diversity training award.

But I don’t. Because all I can ✔️ is “White (Middle Eastern).” And it feels wrong to apply when that’s all I can check. There are so many amazing people who 110% deserve an award like this. And I’m eager to learn from them. But I’m still waiting to learn from someone like me.