The Bronx Journal-September
Persian Memories
A Bronx Immigrant looks at changes in his homeland and recalls
turbulent times
Anthony Pesca
Bronx Journal Staff Reporter
An American citizen who hails from Iran,
Amir’s life is the stuff of movies.
He has moved up from the bottom rung as a “fill-in” security
guard at the Manhattan office building where he works to an engineer for
J.E.M.B. Realty. He later designed the company’s new home.
“It was from then on that all construction projects went
through me. If I don’t have the manpower, I contract out the work.
I’m in charge,” he says proudly.
Later in the day, when things are less
hectic, Amir can’t help but return to thoughts of Iran, the country he
left years ago. His
homeland – and his family there – are undergoing changes, and Amir
can’t help but be curious about a place he left years ago.
Amir has a personal stake in events that
are affecting Iran. He has
four siblings and a father that still reside in Tehran, the capital.
Amir’s older brother works for the Iranian government.
A younger brother is a helicopter repairman.
A
quarter to seven, Gholam Reza Behzadi, a Bronx resident from the
Throggs Neck section of the borough, arrives at his office at a
real estate development firm in lower Manhattan armed with the
morning paper and whatever he can pick up for breakfast.
Amir, as he’s called, is in a rush until 8, dispatching
foremen to various construction sites and drawing up plans to hire
workers for future projects. |
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His two younger sisters are housewives.
Moreover, Amir has several times found himself caught in the
rocky political relationship that Iran and the U.S. have led over the
last quarter of a century.
He was born in 1949, in the small town of
Khashan, about 60 miles outside of Tehran. At the age of 4, Amir’s
family moved to Tehran, where his father worked 12 hours a day, manning
a small grocery store that, to this day, he still owns and operates at
the age of 90. Amir grew up extremely poor but was still able to enjoy 12
years of private schooling due to his father’s sacrifices. “Things like new shoes would have been nice, but I was able
to witness what sacrifice was all about seeing the extremely long hours
my father put in at the store,” he says.
What unpleasant memories he has are tied to
the years the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi who ruled the nation until
being deposed in 1979. “He
was hated by his own people. He would have anyone killed who spoke out
against him, no hesitation whatsoever,” Amir recalls. Amir also says
that he and others are indignant over the billions the Shah and his
family managed to take from the country and invest elsewhere.
At 18 years of age, Amir began a journey
that would ultimately land him in the Bronx.
He enlisted into the Iranian Navy and served on a destroyer in
the Persian Gulf in 1969. He
learned of a scholarship being offered to sailors who wanted to study in
the U.S., signed up for a test, and made the grade.
“Twelve thousand of us took the test with only 500 to be
accepted,” he remembers. “I
was lucky number 13,” says Amir with a proud grin on his face.
He was first shipped off to Washington D.C.
for an intensive course in English.
“The only English I knew was, ‘Hello,’ and ‘Thank You,’
and I smiled a lot,” he laughs. A
year and a half later, with a bigger vocabulary and more confidence,
Amir was off to Throggs Neck to start studies at the State University of
New York at Maritime College. Amir
says his enrollment was just part of an arrangement between the U.S. and
Iran. “At the time, the
two had a business agreement of sorts,” he explains. “The United
States would educate the youth of Iran, and in return, the U.S. would
continue to receive such perks as low oil prices and access to Iranian
Air Force Bases.” That
access was seen as a crucial check to the Soviet Union’s influence
during the Cold War and was used in the name of protecting the oil
fields in the neighboring country of Saudi Arabia from other armies.
Amir quickly rose to the top of his class
which included about nine other Iranians.
He was named to the rank of a company commander, the highest
distinction for a SUNY Maritime student.
As a company commander, Amir supervised between 200 and 250
cadets. “We made
sure they followed the rules, went where they were supposed to go,” he
recalls.
One day, while in his dorm room, Amir
looked out his window and noticed a neighborhood girl playing tennis on
the campus court. “I went
downstairs and asked her if she would play me in a game. I was glad that
she said yes.” Amir knew he had met his future wife the minute he
gazed upon Margaret Rotondo of Throggs Neck.
The began dating and were soon very close.
POLITICAL
CHANGE
Amir could rest a bit
easier. Although he was concerned about his family at home, he was
also safe in the Bronx. Yet,
when he applied for American citizenship, Amir was afraid he’d
be in for another reminder of how strained relations between the
U.S. and Iran had become, particularly after the hostage crisis.
He wasn’t. “You
become a number and wait your turn – which was about a year and
a half,” he says. |
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One stipulation of Amir’s scholarship was
that he would serve for 30 years in the Iranian Navy once he graduated
or else pay $200,000 to the Iranian government. Now in love and attached
to America, Amir was in a tough spot.
He didn’t want to spend 30 years in the Navy, nor did his
family have $200,000 in order to get him out of his commitment. With the
help of an Admiral at Maritime College who wrote a letter to the Iranian
government stating his worth to his country in a different capacity,
Amir got an alternative. He would have to go back to Iran and teach for
two years in an out-of-the-way village in rural Iran. Amir accepted this
amazing offer and went back to Iran, followed shortly by his future
wife, Margaret. He taught history, mathematics, and geography to high
school students. “It was a great experience,” recalls Amir, “But
it was sad seeing such bright students not able to express themselves
due to the constant fear of the Shah.”
Amir recalls one especially jarring story
of the time. After some
small uprisings in a section of Tehran, the local police gathered some
citizens into the village cemetery. “One of the officers lifted a
garbage bag for everyone to see. Piercing out of the bag appeared to be
human limbs, and the bag dripped dark, red blood,”
he remembers. “Not a word was said by the civilians or the police (during
the encounter), but the message was received,” Amir says.
In May of 1977, Amir and Margaret got
married in Iran, and soon afterward, Margaret became pregnant. The
couple decided that Margaret should return to the U.S, where she would
wait for Amir to join her once he finished his teaching obligation. It
took Amir over a month after the completion of his teaching assignment
just to talk to the right people at the American Embassy in order to get
his visa. “Things were really starting to get ugly in Iran, and
that’s why they gave me so much trouble at the Embassy,” he says.
“They were all looking for bribes and handouts. When they
weren’t offered anything, they just said, ‘Come back tomorrow, come
back next week.’” Amir finally received his visa and left his native
land for the last time – a country by then on the verge of revolution.
It was only a few months later that the
same Embassy was overrun and American hostages were taken.
Now in the Bronx and living only blocks away from his former
campus, Amir was able to see the events on television and witness the
fallout of the hostage crisis. He
also saw how the confusion back home affected students at SUNY Maritime.
“Some quickly fled back home because the money would stop. Some
remained. Nobody knew what to do,” he says.
Some were strapped and so scared they auctioned automobiles out
on the streets of the Bronx, taking the first sum of money any bidder
who was lucky to come along offered.
Amir could rest a bit easier, although he
was certainly concerned about his family at home, he was also
safe in the Bronx. Yet,
when he applied for American citizenship, Amir was afraid he’d be in
for another reminder of how strained relations between the U.S. and Iran
had become, particularly after the hostage crisis.
He wasn’t. “You
become a number and wait your turn – which was about a year and a
half,” he says.
Amir was then given the standard exams.
He recalls sitting in front of another Iranian during a written
test. “This guy was so
insulted by the ease of the questions that he yelled out, ‘What do you
think, I’m American? Ask me something difficult!’” chuckles Amir.
“I don’t know if he passed or not.”
In seven months, Amir received notification of his citizenship.
He says that during his time in the U.S. he has never faced any
“real” discrimination as an Iranian-American. “If people did ever
make any type of discriminating remarks, it came from their stupidity.
If I responded, I’d be lowering myself to their levels, making me
equally or more ignorant than them.”
Amir still keeps tabs on his homeland and
recent changes the country has undergone. “Iran has always been though
of as male-dominated society. Not any more – the women are in
charge,” he says. Amir
explains that there are more women than men in Iran due to the
casualties of the Iran-Iraq conflict. “There are free elections every
four years for a President, so it is up to the women of Iran to decide
who is in power.”
“Women have always been highly respected
in Iranian culture,” he adds. In
fact an old saying in Iran has it that, “ If you disrespect your
mother, you go straight to hell when you die,” he’s quick to point
out. It is said in Iran
that with one hand, women rock the cradle and with the other, they rule
the world.
Recently, the U.S. and Iran have opened
trade talks, although nothing major seems to be on the horizon. Amir is
confident that change will indeed blossom from these first steps, even
though some in his old country a mistrustful of the U.S. and its close
ties with the Shah. “Iranians
will probably have ill feelings for some time to come toward Americans,
but when it comes to money, Iranians don’t care if you’re friend or
foe.”
Amir and Margaret, who have remained in the
Bronx in their Throggs Neck home, have raised two children. Their
daughter, Dawn, 21, will graduate from college this spring with a degree
in Education. Their son Jason, 17, will attend a small college in
Connecticut this fall. Amir’s eyes begin to glow when he speaks of his
children. “In this life, they are my greatest accomplishment.” |