I-raynians Need Not Apply

"After several such phone calls, we realized our votes simply negate each other"


My mom is an avid democrat, and her mother, my grandmother is a zealous republican. Every year around election day, there are bound to be a lot of arguments between the two over their diverging views. It makes visiting complicated and sometimes awkward, but despite that, they love to debate and talk politics.

At fifty-eight, my father found himself unemployed and with no prospects.

Firoozeh's father's situation is really similar to Sundara's family, a formerly successful family reduced to farming and picking fruit. Naro also used to be really successful and had a good job, but it took him a really long time to get a job even close to as good as his old one. Many immigrants, formerly thriving in their old country, have really awful jobs as they try to learn English and adjust to work customs.

Me and Bob Hope

"During the month of of December, people constantly wished us 'Merry Christmas' in that automatic way. If we said that we didn't celebrate Christmas, we received a cheery 'Happy Hanukkah.' Call us Scrooge, but we didn't celebrate that either."

One of my favorite parts of Children of the River is when Sundara admits that her mother put up Christmas decorations all year long, not knowing that it was Christmas. I realize the only similarity there is that they are talking about the same holiday, I really like it because it shows two immigrant family's attempt at assimilating in to America's biggest holiday.

"I love watching my children count down the days till December 25, a countdown that seems to get harder every time"

Christmas is sooo exciting, and everyone always counts down the hours and days until Christmas. Christmas is so fun and every year, even though you're supposedly more mature, the countdown gets harder and harder to bear.