Not Lost in Translation: the essay that got me into Penn.
This is the (2nd) Common App personal statement I wrote when I was 18.
Common App Prompt: Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.
The theme is a bit cliche: ”Am I the America I was born in, or the motherland my parents left behind?” Nor does this piece supply as much information about me as the 1st version of my common app essay [to be posted in the future]. In some respects, I think the biggest thing it says about me is that I was capable of writing it. Because even I did not know I was capable of this sort of writing.
It flowed out of my soul in one sitting. 5 hours. Cliche or not, to this day it may be the most lyrical piece of writing I’ve produced. This is the Common App essay that got me into UPenn.
January 1st, 2017
Words: 647/650
My Farsi skills have slipped away over the years, to my own dismay and to the particular disappointment of Babajon (my grandfather), who has for Iran the same pride that Gus Portokalos has for Greece in My Big Fat Greek Wedding. This past summer, when he and Mamana (my grandmother) visited from Iran, they brought me a Farsi translation of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. I launched into the book equipped with a 3rd grade level of reading, and once I’d started, there was no choice but to finish.
I soon discovered some things were invariably lost in translation, like “magic wand” reading as “sorcerous stick,” or flying brooms losing their folk implications. But despite these differences, I rediscovered the whimsy and wizardry which had mesmerized me years earlier. They are alive and well in the Persian edition, along with the history, hopes, fears and feelings each character carries with them over and around the undulations of the plot.
I wonder sometimes what language my story is written in. I’ve lived in Boston since birth, but when I was younger, each visit to see my grandparents in Iran felt like a return to my real home. However, as my worldview and political consciousness matures year by year, my sense of pride in my Persian roots is increasingly challenged. Visiting Iran now feels like being an outsider to my own home.
I grew up loving Harry Potter. Still, it wasn’t until reading it in Farsi that I saw myself in Harry. Just as Harry strives to discover the truth about his past, I press to determine the truth about Iran, struggling to reconcile the people and culture I cherish with the evil country I hear about. As for my parents, their tale is one of escaping the Death Eaters, slipping to America in an act of self-sacrifice and leaving behind the only friends and family they had known. Theirs is a tale of marching in opposition to the Shah as teenagers despite the risks. Of having family members and friends arrested, tortured and executed for merely their peaceful opposition. Of weathering eight years of the Iran-Iraq war and passing the time spent burrowed in their basements dancing to the beat of the bomb sirens in case that night would be their last. Of later learning that for some of their friends, it had been.
I cannot escape their story, their past, any more than Harry can escape his. I even carry the marks, my lightning-scars, that show for it: large always-smiling brown eyes I share with my mom, a freckle on my left cheek which perfectly mirrors my dad’s. On my right wrist, I carry a gift from my grandmother, a leather bracelet with the thin golden figure of Ahura Mazda, the god of the ancient Iranian Zoroastrian faith. Ahura Mazda symbolizes the Persia I take pride in and reminds me to embody “Good Thoughts, Good Words, Good Deeds,” the values my parents have instilled in me.
Babajon is fond of telling me about the “Ghalee Kerman,” the Kerman Rug. This rug, he tells me, is so finely crafted that the footsteps that brush against it and the sunlight which beats down on it only increase its beauty, its character, and its value. The footprints of my Persian heritage and my family’s past, combined with my American upbringing, have worked their way into the fibers of my being. But it is ultimately tomorrow’s encounters and challenges which draw out my best colors and qualities.
Sometimes more than others, I think my story is written in English, then translated to Farsi. Other times, it is unequivocally the opposite. For now, I’m content without an answer. I’ll continue living a life characterized by good thoughts, good words, and good deeds, for I’ve learned that values like these and the people who live by them are not lost in translation.
* Editor’s Note: In addition to my photo work, I tutor high school students in writing and college applications. This is the first step towards my project of adding more to my site about my college counseling work.
