The F Word
Writing Project 2
In “The F Word” written by Firoozeh Dumas an excerpt from her autobiography titled Funny in Farsi, she talks about her struggles living in America from having a very different name, to not understanding English very well. Dumas uses examples from her childhood and all throughout her life to explain why she feels Americans are ignorant to new and different things. The author would like her audience to be aware of other cultures, and their names and lifestyles. She feels Americans were not open to accept her culture and difference, and instead of embracing it, they made fun and insulted what they were unsure of. Based on the simplicity of words she uses, the mild tempered language she includes, and how relatable her story is, I think she intended her audience to be anyone, but mainly clueless insecure Americans, and immigrants who all might have experienced this at some point. I will now break down Firoozeh’s excerpt for further analysis. The main idea that Dumas wants to get across, is everyone needs to be more open-minded to other cultures. There was a wide diverse world out there, full of things we’ve never heard of or seen. No one should be singled out because of the difficulty of pronouncing ones
name. Firoozeh knew when arriving here in America, there would be cultural differences, but didn’t know something as simple as her name would be the main cause of her tribulations. Another piece of important information that you can see in the text, is that it would seem in the earlier years of her life, people were less tolerant to her differences, and as the years progressed, and the things that were and were not acceptable changed, there was more acceptance to her individuality. Firoozeh, when translated into Farsi means “turquoise”, but she argues that in America it means “unpronounceable”, based on the fact that people would attempt to say her name and give up because they did not want to seem ignorant because they could not say
In “The F Word” written by Firoozeh Dumas an excerpt from her autobiography titled Funny in Farsi, she talks about her struggles living in America from having a very different name, to not understanding English very well. Dumas uses examples from her childhood and all throughout her life to explain why she feels Americans are ignorant to new and different things. The author would like her audience to be aware of other cultures, and their names and lifestyles. She feels Americans were not open to accept her culture and difference, and instead of embracing it, they made fun and insulted what they were unsure of. Based on the simplicity of words she uses, the mild tempered language she includes, and how relatable her story is, I think she intended her audience to be anyone, but mainly clueless insecure Americans, and immigrants who all might have experienced this at some point. I will now break down Firoozeh’s excerpt for further analysis. The main idea that Dumas wants to get across, is everyone needs to be more open-minded to other cultures. There was a wide diverse world out there, full of things we’ve never heard of or seen. No one should be singled out because of the difficulty of pronouncing ones
name. Firoozeh knew when arriving here in America, there would be cultural differences, but didn’t know something as simple as her name would be the main cause of her tribulations. Another piece of important information that you can see in the text, is that it would seem in the earlier years of her life, people were less tolerant to her differences, and as the years progressed, and the things that were and were not acceptable changed, there was more acceptance to her individuality. Firoozeh, when translated into Farsi means “turquoise”, but she argues that in America it means “unpronounceable”, based on the fact that people would attempt to say her name and give up because they did not want to seem ignorant because they could not say