Desiree Akhavan

Iranians communicate their meaning in the spaces between their words, the implications.

You have to learn a second, silent language.

There's even a word for it, tarof, the art of disingenuous generosity.

We're raised to keep offering things we don't actually want to offer and say things that we don't actually mean but must out of mandatory, aggressive politeness.

To this day, when you go to pay for a cab in Iran, they'll say, no, no, no, no, no, for you it's free.

You are like a sister, a daughter, a mother to me.

I could never charge you.

And then it's your job to convince them to charge you.

Yeah.

And then once you've convinced them to charge you, you need to haggle them down so they don't rip you off.

Being the child of immigrants is like being born a widow.

The loss is baked into you.

You grow up intrinsically homesick for a place that you've never known and that no longer exists the way your family remembers it.

Our home was a testament to an Iran locked in time.

Rajar paintings of unibrowed women playing the sitar and a samovar that took 80 percent of the kitchen island.

The music we listened to was Persian, dated and featured way too much electric keyboard.

Even the Farsi I was taught to speak is antiquated.

I say, may your hands not hurt, when all I want to say is thanks.

We didn't go tailgating, we went to mehmunis, parties where there were no fewer than 50 guests.

Dinner was never served before 11, and you danced so hard you left with pit stains.