English is on stage May 10 – June 9!
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I was born and raised in Iran—where Persian was the only language I used to understand and communicate with the world—but there came a point in my life when my wife and I decided to leave our country in pursuit of a better life. Emerging from the pressures of living in Iran, we dedicated our lives to achieving the American dream. The first step toward this goal was passing the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) required for American university applications, which I thought I could do in about six months. A year passed and I still wasn’t ready, so I stopped everything else in my life to focus solely on learning English. Even after two years of immersing myself in its study day and night, I still wasn’t ready.
Gradually, I realized that I was isolated in the English world and the only people I could connect with were my English classmates. We were a group of dreamers who wanted to change our lives by leaving the country, but we were blocked by the massive, concrete wall of the exam. After three years, I realized that the solution had become the problem. I was losing everything by trying to learn English—the most important loss being myself. I could no longer remember who I was or what I wanted to be. I could see the sadness and worry in my wife’s eyes because I was destroying her dreams too. Despite my fear, this drove me to take the exam, which I passed with a much higher score than I needed.
Five years have passed since my wife and I moved to America, and it’s taught me that English isn’t just about passing the TOEFL, but rather it’s about living in the actual world of this language. Even though my English has improved significantly, I still have a Persian accent. I make grammatical mistakes, struggle to find the right words and I’m definitely not as funny (trust me, I’m hilarious in Persian). Yet, the English part of me continues to grow as I write and think in this language, and even dream of it more now than ever before.
Even though I am and always will be Persian, English has created a new version of me—or maybe this is the new me, someone living between two languages.
My story shares similarities with the universal experience of countless immigrants or anyone who speaks more than one language, but to convey this type of journey requires context, a story, life—or perhaps a brilliant play. Sanaz Toossi has masterfully encapsulated the narrative of this experience with English by creating something that allows us to feel and reflect on our relationship with language.
Hamid Dehghani is the Director for English.
