A Bittersweet Persian New Year

Code Switch

NPR

Society & Culture

4.6 • 14.9K Ratings

🗓️ 22 March 2017

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

It's springtime, and the celebration of rebirth and the New Year in Iranian-American communities is tempered by the recent rise in Islamaphobic incidents and ongoing uncertainties around the travel ban. To mark Nowruz, Gene and Shereen talk about what's bitter and what's sweet with Nilou Motamed, the Iranian-American editor-in-chief of Food & Wine magazine, and visit with Code Switch friend and comedian Negin Farsad.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	What's good, y'all? This is CoSWitch. I'm Jean Dempsey.
0:02.9	And I'm Shereen Madisal Maraji.
0:04.7	Shereen, homey.
0:06.3	You've been getting a lot of side eye on the Twitter lately.
0:09.2	Because you always talk about your Puerto Rican-ness,
0:11.6	especially after your recent reporting trip from Holyoke.
0:14.3	Sustically, the most Puerto Rican place in America?
0:16.7	No, actually, it's the most Puerto Rican place stateside.
0:19.1	Oh, you're right. You're right. Because Puerto Rico's part of America.
0:21.3	You're right. Did you learn nothing in that episode?
0:23.4	You're right. I stand corrected.
0:24.8	But folks have been pointing out that you always talk about your Puerto Rican identity.
0:28.1	But your Iranian identity, you little dodgy. Not so much.
0:31.4	Look, I didn't grow up around a lot of Iranians,
0:33.8	not even my Iranian family, which is a long story for another episode that I may do.
0:38.3	All that to say, I'm Persian deficient. I admit it.
0:42.1	It's the curse of being a mixed girl.
0:43.8	So let's let's ameliorate that. Let's fix that.
0:46.2	On this episode, we are going to talk about...
0:48.6	In one episode, we're going to ameliorate that.
0:51.5	I did not know this, but the US is home to the largest Iranian community outside of Iran.
0:55.2	And it happens to be Persian New Year, nor Ruz, which means New Day.
	...

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