My ninth birthday fell Tuesday in September in a school day, a bright and clear-ski. I expected my mother treats to school to bring lunch, a tradition that I liked how every year for one day, I knew I would have liked it should not feel weird bookworm, Iranian Americans, the outsider who is not a Football -Kick could pass to save his life. I would be celebrated. But no cupcakes this year. I went home to a dark house, disappointed. Knowing I was too young to know what it meant that my birthday fell on 9/11. People are always surprised when I tell them my birthday on September 11 will raise eyebrows, or simply flat-out mean. “Ouch” They are clearly the Middle East, I understand. 9.11 a day in America was changed forever. He changed my life forever, too. During the break, the kids asked me why, “my people”, had attacked the Twin Towers. I was ridiculed and called names, like many other Muslims and people of the Middle East at that time. I was already feeling a purpose outside. Now I was a “terrorist”. And another thing: I’m gay. Growing up in suburban Virginia, I do not think I will ever come out. For Iran’s post-9/11 America was one thing, but to be gay, too? An identity oppressed was enough to make me feel isolated. These two together it felt impossible. After all, I’ve never had a gay Iranian met. The only time these two words together, gay and feeling had been in Iranian article that homosexuality was still punishable by death in Iran. My identity felt like a contradiction. The type of equation you punch in your computer’s identity and get an error message. When he finally arrived at school, I kept these two parts of my life separate. It was not hard. Just back from specific details about my weekend and my friends in phone calls home, and I have moved away from parts of my heritage. I had between the set is really a wall for me that existed in New York at the college that went with the guys on dates and Robyn danced to gay bars, and me who have gone home, and it was a good Iranian child. But the wall does not always protect me. At June 12, 2016 I opened Twitter and read that a Muslim man from 49 people in the gay clubs in Orlando Pulse killed. I immediately felt bad. I ‘was the manifestation of my tiefstenen ashamed of the two parts of my identity that I had fought with so much, suddenly fixed in contrast to the other in a violent and public phase. And I could not turn again to my family for support. The error message returned immediately after insidious again. Donald Trump On Inauguration Day, I watched the stream of the New York Times live gay Trump DeploraBall Gala (oh, the irony). The reporter asked a participant what he thought Trump for the LGBTQ community are doing. His answer? “We protect. Radical Islam” Muslim Americans are not the only group that has been labeled in the US Our country was founded on racist ideals far rogue. And every day Trumps America, it seems, a different identity under attack. If our leaders complain of “radical Islam” if “returned” the US Congress say the “crime places infested with which they came,” if you fan the flames of systemic racism and if discriminate against LGBTQ people what they, re want to say is: They do not belong here. And it is impossible not to internalize. But I have learned one thing: if you are lucky, you can make people around the world whose very existence is beginning to chip away any bias can be found collected in itself. Two years ago, I traveled to Rome for a summer. There I met a poet and bartender named Jahan, who was also Iranian. Jahan wore pearls and enamel, but looked like it could be my cousin. It has hosted readings in its full, sweaty Bar in Trastevere, read Rumi quartets and telling long stories, animated. Jahan was Iranian, and was also strange. It was both, in the same breath, and took pride. Only people who have experienced some degree of discrimination and exclusion, that they know what mistakes feels to know how powerful message to meet someone like you, and so at peace with himself. Meeting Jahan and watched as he carried him, I started, I had taken all the stories in question of what it means Muslim, Iranian Gay and recognized to be as they were all artificially. It struck me that not only were both parts of my identity acceptable, but could co-exist and complement each other. My Iranian culture could not be repented of my queer and vice distracted. Maybe I started thinking that I have to bear not these feelings of shame and contradiction. Historically, Iranians are arrogant; We are not known for silence. We are tolerant-Cyrus the Great ordered the first known charter of human rights. And we are storytellers. Maybe I could embrace things. Maybe other people, or maybe its opinion would not have been really important. When I turn a year older on this historically tragic day, I feel surprisingly full of hope, despite everything. Every day, more and more Americans to resist this idea, which does not include the people among us. Because we do. We are everywhere race, color, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, religion, ability, socioeconomic status, or any combination are our chaotic, seemingly irreconcilable truths in all matter in it. Maybe I’m too optimistic and sometimes I still feel overwhelmed by doubt and come back with me. But what choice do I have? I’m too tired to make the headlines, stereotypes, hatred; that the noise will never be brought completely to rest, but I’m proud to fight to shout about it. Can my two identities so powerful and fully compatible with any error message. see choose the image courtesy of copyright Arvin Ahmadi
I am a Muslim with a 11 Birthday September is Iranian-American is how I come out of My Identity
