Portrait of a Persian American girl

18-year-old Iranian American poet Keana Saberi shares her award-winning poem and reflects on the current protests in Iran.

I wake from visions of scarlet, the stinging screams of young women collapsing the air around me. I see them everywhere around me. My nightmares are filled with their sorrow stricken voices, unknown to me but familiar in their depth of urgency, woven by our shared language, Farsi. In class, I notice how my curly hair curves and contorts into the air around me. The ringlets are bold but distinctly unaware of their safety.

This has been my reality for the last month, ever since Mahsa Amini — a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman — was jailed, beaten and killed by Iran’s morality police for supposedly violating the regime’s hijab law. Young women are taking to the streets in Iran, pulling their hijabs off in solidarity with Mahsa and the countless other women who have been beaten and brutalized by the morality police. From mandating what women must wear to what jobs they are allowed to hold, the regime restricts almost every aspect of Iranian women’s lives. Through these demonstrations, young women are fighting back. They are leaving the universities and schools they worked so hard to get into and facing constant suppression to protest for their autonomy. They are bravely demanding the right to make their own choices and to live free from sexist scrutiny. They are criticizing the cruelty of the regime, from the censorship and imprisonment of journalists to the detainment of human rights activists.

As an Iranian-American, it is of the utmost difficulty to capture the myriad of feelings and the intensity that can catapulate you watching these events unfold from afar. I’ve been encompassed by reflection, observing how I am here writing about injustice and having the immense privilege to be vocal when so many students like me are facing cruelty and oppression from the regime. The injustices that have and continue to occur in Iran are devastating. As I see the videos capturing young women’s plight, I think about how opportunities and circumstances have altered our experiences. In a makeshift collage in my mind, the outlines of our faces interchange, and the lines of our lives blur into a singular stretch of blue, juxtaposition and distinction cast away.

Upon learning about Mahsa’s death and the protests, my first thought was of my grandmother and how she would feel to see the same cycles of violence perpetrated by the regime and women standing at the forefront of the movement. My whole life I looked up to my grandmother with a sense of unwavering pride; she had protested for women’s rights in Iran during and after the 1979 Revolution and was imprisoned for using her voice to call out corruption and inhumanity. She passed away seven months ago, and it brings me indescribable pain when I see vivid parallels in her stories from over four decades prior with scenes I witness on TV and social media today.

In the fall of 2021, I wrote “Portrait of a Persian American girl,” my first narrative poem. Dedicated to my grandmother and our family, it delineates my journey of understanding my identity, pairing my Iranian heritage with growing up in America. As many immigrants or children of immigrants might relate to, this poem describes wanting to relish your culture and heritage but simultaneously feeling separated from the experiences that define that country, either the hardships or even the happinesses. Although this can lead to feelings of uncertainty as neither an insider or outsider, I realized through this poem and recent events that it is so critical to speak up about what is going on in your family’s home country, even if you have never experienced what you’re speaking out about firsthand. You must use your voice — especially when it is free from restriction and restraint — to amplify the voices of those who are being silenced.

In “Portrait of a Persian American girl,” there are also depictions of moments from Iran’s past, such as the sound of guards’ imposing footsteps echoing through the streets. These scenes unfortunately clearly and gruesomely resonate with the injustice and sorrow in Iran today. However, alongside that, there are also similarities between the protests my grandma participated in decades ago and those happening today (though some aspects are noticeably distinct between eras). While it is startling to read the poem now in the context of all that is unfolding, the resilience and courage of the Iranian women remains the same. I hope you reflect on these critical themes while reading this poem, specifically understanding the fragility and precious nature of freedom.

Keana wrote “Portrait of a Persian American girl” while part of the inaugural Austin Youth Poet Laureate cohort and received a 2022 Scholastic National Gold Key in recognition of her words.

celestial dust is the darkness of my hair

the ridges of my nose, they emulate the rugged terrain

of the mountains poised with sleepy snow pockets in Iran

and the broken lines

you can see them

they resemble the backs of my family as they worked in endless cycles

carrying the weight of preserving the past in those they cared about while holding the future in their tightened grasps - a future so wholly unclear yet drenched in dreams

slivers of saffron steep like tea leaves through my hair

the seven emblems of spring from the haftsteen collectively become my perfume

now I see I’m the goddess of Persia

plump pieces of dried fruit from morasa polo are the jewels of my ornate crown

my skin draws from the pigment of halva

a confectionary delight dropping color into my cheeks

the cheeks that maintain a smile the shade of fresh maast

my lips painted with the juice of pomegranate seeds

an accumulation of the finest tints of nature’s splendor

fingers forged from grains of golden rice kissed with ruby barberries

do not deny me these beauties

I was born and bred from the sweetness of herbs

the lashes brushing my eyelids are the arrows admired and immortalized by the Persian poets

I am a symphony comprised of the warming chai nabat tea that ails fragile and failing bones

mingled with the aroma of noon bread, the cracks of rising dough resembling the lines forming on my skin

I am the sombol flower

beckoning the spring to populate the earth with vivacious flowers and cooling rain

the purveyor of the spools of sunshine

wafting honeyed tones in the mid-afternoon

the darkness of my brows mirror the Iranian sky as it ceases to burble with bright lights

limbs of immortal bodies tracing outlines in the dark canvas, breaking and building with coherence

I am the culmination of those past and my own stories yet to be formed and fostered

I explore the complexities of being two

I am Iranian

I am American

sometimes I think I am a viceroy butterfly mimicking a monarch

I don’t know what mold to fit and my limbs are torn

poised to fit into one cast iron mold but then feeling like meaning is lost in the other

two may be more complicated than one

but the two can often flow in concordance

I am tethered to Iran like words are given meaning when they are assembled together purposefully

Iran is detailed in the curves of my irises - scenes unfolding like velvet cloth cast in my view

I am the crafter and cultivator of legacies

I am an American activist

fighting for the freedom of speech my relatives were so cruelly denied

I use my voice because silence will never be an option

because voice carries loud amongst the masses but even louder when it is quiet

when silence exists suppression can not be stifled

with hope, I attempt to garner the bravery of my grandmother

as she rose in resistance when opposition was a death sentence

where resounding voice was treason

where the bloodshed spread and painted the skylight of the seasons

pain stuck to corners where light sought refuge yet was denied protection

as malicious military might grinned ominously like the Cheshire Cat in the night

corruption mangled revolution

it reversed and backtracked progress

cries for vanquishing monarchy were surpassed by the tendrils of tyranny

acid rooted itself in the rain of revolution

stealing cries of freedom

subsequently marking the land with destitution

suppression became normalcy

the night’s cooling gaze was no security

men in uniforms smiled in shades of ivy-coated treachery

feeding off their brutality, seeping further and further away from the safeguard of morality

now I sit here and visualize

remembering a movement that was broken and vandalized

bones and spirits shattered all the same

clinging to my skin

are my grandmother’s stories

as she was dragged out into the night

for desiring liberty

the sky was full and heavy and so were the pools of water accumulating in her children’s eyes

terror grasping their complexions

now years later here I am - her grandchild -

her story has been adopted by me

it is her resilience that threads into my cries against injustice

the luminary inspiring the inheritor of bravery

I would much rather hope to inherit morality than mounds of money

value that is not confined to currency or nationality

to the whim of a changing time - something lacking vitality

I hope to carry her strength in my song pledging freedom

freedom is fragile, fleeting, and fledging

the fruit forbidden by the oppressor

it is the matchstick kindling fire

it can be dismembered as soon as it is lit

flame reduced to pinches of ash

never take freedom for granted

either out of comfort or ignorance

now, here again, it draws like inkwork against my name

see my grandmother standing with conviction

the rummaging of military men as they scoured titles and cracked knuckles against book spines

the battered books represented the intellectual freedom they prescribed

because knowledge is what oppressors fear the most

power is fated to plunder but education never falls or crumbles asunder

it is the skeleton of our world - the bones that either ensure the longevity of humanity or the rapidness of its demise

the floundering fuel of freedom never dies

it grips to the skin like the promise and inevitable pain of love

I come equipped to be the storyteller

I am Iranian-American

child of immigrants

journalist

poet

here I am rising in ascension

I’ve realized identity is not simply a thing you claim

but rather, it is your trajectory

my voice was bestowed to me like some are provided religious comfort or stores of wealth

some form of immunity, backbone, or rather community

the gleaming, gilded words of the American constitution may not have been made for someone like me

young

woman

bushy haired and bilingual

bringing her voice each octave louder as they attempt to push down on her vocal cords

and silence the crescendos of sound

but it must embrace me now as I have embraced it

if you are granted the right to vocalize why remain silent

it is privilege that allows you to stick to the sidelines

to deny, avoid, or ignore

I use the privileges my relatives were denied

the remnants of my family’s scars are hidden to the unfamiliar eye

but fading photographs are the greatest reminder of happiness and the reminiscing of the sorrowful past

they attempt to bandage blistered old wounds with stories now more like histories

tea drips into the mouths ailing their tongues as the words of the past scorch like walls of wildfires

my grandfather sings in bellowing tones some forgotten Persian melody

and sadness is the complexion of this tune

the tonic for a longing heart

a powerful remedy

dreams are the food of visions promised, realized, or yet to be reached

that is why I am proud to be Iranian and American

to fight to better my homeland

America

to remember the stories that lingered in my family’s minds but remained in solitude from the world

they are passed down to me

like linen and crystal cups

yet far more precious

they are the intangible ready to configure into the tangible

a line persuading you to live up or to instead write a new legacy

it is countless faces

blurred and indistinguishable

handing you the responsibility to make their faces recognizable

to carry stories not like burdens or bruises but like fabled books that have mastered the art of persuasion

they persuade lingering legacies to revive

so I wield the power of two

I am Iranian

I am American

and I’ve realized identity is not linear

Keana Saberi

(she/her) is an 18-year-old Iranian American poet and journalism honors student at the Moody College of Communication at UT Austin. Her poetry and personal essays delve into the intricacy of identity and the notion of belonging as well as stories reflecting on immigration and heritage. She loves watching Kdramas, trying new restaurants and traveling to different countries, a notebook in hand to jot down memories and moments.