Blog 2- The "F Word" by Firoozeh Dumas

I enjoyed this piece of writing by Dumas very much because I can really relate to Dumas's experience with names. Since my name is "Lam" which in English can be closely related to a farm animal. Often in my early childhood I would dread telling people my name because it would be followed by kids calling me names such as Lamb-chops or kids singing the theme song to the popular kid's show "Lamb-chops play along". But as I grew older I didn't care about what others thought about my name, because in reality my name represents my historical family background and doesn't represent me as a person.

In the piece of writing by Firoozeh her early childhood experiences and experiences as an adult are quite similar. As a child coming to America kids who could not comprehend her Iranian name would just simply call her "Ferocious" because did they did not have the ability to adapt to her name. So since the American culture wasn't ready to accommodate to such a name as Firoozeh, she decided to unjust to American culture by changing her name to Julie, but in this process she lost her Iranian cultural identity and assimilated to an American. As an adult that just graduated from UC-Berkeley with honors I think that employers would be rushing to her door-step, but I was wrong. Since that her name was Firoozeh again, that didn't help attract any employers but when she added Julie the employers came.

As Firoozeh got married and grew more mature she simply said that people must adjust to her identity as an Iranian and adjust to the melting pot of America which she refers as a "spice cabinet". People must simply understand that America has many cultures that are unique as they are beautiful.