SENIOR EDITOR
11/18/03
Rouzbeh Ahmadian used to tell people his name sounded like Roosevelt without the second e.
But most people still didn’t get it, he said.
“They would say, ‘What’s your name?’ and I’d say ‘Rouzbeh Ahmadian’ three times,” the 21-year-old senior said.
Ahmadian, who came to the United States from Tehran, Iran, in August 2000, is just one of about 20 members in the Society of Independent Persian Students.
The club began last spring when two friends, Dustin Saiidi and Roozbeh Nakhaee, founded it. They said their goals are to “unite the Persian community and alleviate negative stereotypes about people from the Middle East.”
The club meets twice a month and teaches Persian history and Cyrillic characters to club members.
The club serves to connect students born in Iran and in the United States to Persian families. Some students said the club helps them to preserve Persian
culture while becoming more American.
“What they’re trying to achieve is to successfully enter into the American society while retaining their culture and values,” said Daniel Rostrup, an almost-member because his classes conflict with the meeting times.
Rostrup, half Iranian and half Norwegian, came to the United States in 1997 from Norway on a student visa. He’ll graduate this May but said he plans to apply for a work extension to stay in the country.
He said that compared with Europeans, many Americans he’s met are not interested in foreign affairs.
“The average American is not interested in what goes on in the rest of the world,” Rostrup said. “You notice Europeans have this thirst for knowledge, whereas a lot of Americans don’t know and don’t care to know.”
That’s what makes the Society of Independent Persian Students important to Rostrup, he said.
“Most Americans aren’t going to go learn about other cultures,” he said. “All these ethnic clubs around campus bring the culture to Americans.”
Ali Behnoud’s family moved from Tehran two years before he was born. Behnoud, 22, said growing up in a Persian family in America helped him become more accepting of other cultures.But some key things were different.
“I never got grounded,” Behnoud remembered. “That’s something that never happened in my house.”
Grounding isn’t something Persian families do, he said.
Behnoud grew up surrounded by Reno’s small close-knit Persian community. He said he has a lot of respect for people such as his parents who left Iran for a new country.
“You gotta give them credit, people who come and start a whole new life,” he said. “No matter what, it’s pretty hard to come from another country.”
Ahmadian cheerfully celebrates some of the differences between Persian and American culture.
“Here you can openly talk to people of the opposite sex,” he said. “Over there, if you walk up to girls it’s like, ‘Don’t come near me!’”
He remembers some of the pressure religious radicals placed on him.
“They bring out this psychological warfare with you,” he said. “They make you feel bad about who you are.”
Ahmadian said religious fanatics frown on premarital relationships. Walking down the street with his girlfriend got him ridiculed in Iran, he said.
“They make you feel guilty about what you are doing,” he said. “Then you won’t have any pleasure with your friends.”
Ahmadian said the Persian student organization makes him proud of his roots.
“We never had this until last year,” he said. “Now that it’s organized and recognized by the school, it makes you feel proud about your heritage. A lot of Iranians want to adapt-they want to become Americans. But you can come to an
equilibrium between these two cultures."