An Immigration Story:

An Immigration Story:
How I Met A “Dime”!

Reza Khabazian

Leaving your homeland and residing in another–with a totally new culture, language, and set of laws and regulations–is very challenging and requires a lot of adaptation that, in most cases, is also very frustrating.

But, looking back at those challenges many years later makes some of them look funny, some amazing, and some, of course, sad.

The truth is, no matter how we feel about them, the challenges are, for sure, part of the history of immigration that needs to be documented for use by our grandchildren or simply by historians to picture the hardship that first generation Iranians had to go through to meet those challenges.

The main purpose of this column is to encourage our readers to start telling their stories so we can present a diverse documentary.

“How I Met A Dime” is an effort for this purpose.

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The first thought of continuing my graduate studies in America came to my mind in 1976; it took two years to finally materialize the thought.

The possible obstacles that could face me in my new journey were listed one after another but, funnily enough, the language barrier never made it on that list. Graduating from an English-speaking university in the city of Shiraz (Pahlavi University) made me believe that English was just “a piece of cake” for me! It took me only two days after my arrival in the U.S. to realize not only the huge difference that exists between Academic and Conversational language, but also the gravity of pronouncing the words with the correct music, called accent.

Rahim, a friend of mine back home, who had an opportunity to be sent by the Ministry of Agriculture to America for a short period of only three weeks, acted as an expert on American Culture. He tried to prepare me for easier adaptation:

“AAMRIKA is very big and very chip. You can get any cing you want with almost nocing if you go shopping on Wednesday!! Because every cing is NESF (half price). Hungry?? No prablom. There is one Mac Doonald in every corner that you can get one HAMBERGERD, one Pepsi, and one Potato for 99 cents.”

To purchase the flight ticket, I had to go to the heart of Tehran (Villa Street). The whole town was sad. Tires burning, demonstrators running in all directions avoiding gunshots, doors to all stores were half shut, and the face of everybody passing you by lacked any sign of happiness.

Tears ran down on my face as I asked myself a painful question:
Is it fair that I am planning to leave?
And the soothing answer of:

It is not permanent, it is only for a few years. Coming back with more up-to-date scientific information will make you more useful. Let the journey begin!

The tickets were purchased and finally came the very sad moment of saying goodbye to my family members, especially my mother. The pain has not left me after almost 43 years!

I called Hamid, a close high school friend who was going through his graduate studies at Cornell University, to let him know the day and time of my arrival. He was the best help I could get upon arrival in New York.

Pan Am flight 111 was preparing to land at JFK almost four hours later than scheduled. Worried, I asked one of the Iranian students on the plane to educate me how to use the telephone to call my friend once we arrived. He rushed me through and we exchanged some paper bills for coins. Then we landed.

As expected, there was no sign of Hamid at the airport.

I braced myself to make a call on the American phones. I picked up the handle of the telephone and it rang a few times before I heard a lady on the other end:

Hello, can I talk to Hamid?
This is an operator, Sir! Do you want to make a collect call?
ESCUSE me. What is collect?
Do you want him to pay for the call?
NO, No, I want to pay!
Then, you need to deposit another dime!
Another Dime? What is that?
Another coin. A dime!
ESCUSE me. I have some coins but don’t know which one is Dime! Because I just landed in JFK for the first time in your country!
Oh boy…. Ok, a dime is the smallest coin that you have, the same color as a quarter.
TANK You, TANK YOU.

And that is how I met a Dime but, unfortunately, nobody picked up the phone. The operator came back on the line:

Sir, there is no answer. You can try later.
OK

I thought to myself: Hamid must have waited a long time and must have felt tired and left. I need to give him half an hour to get home before I try again.

My one year old baby boy was knocked out after 16 hours of flight, sleeping deep in my wife’s arm. She sat on top of our luggage, looking lost and tired. I walked up and down the huge lobby trying not to get lost, thinking: What the hell I am going to do if I cannot get hold of him? Where are we going to sleep tonight till tomorrow for our next flight to OKLAHOMA?

Now, the good thing was, I was an expert at making a telephone call since I made friends with a Dime!

ESCUSE me, can I talk to Hamid?
This is an operator! Is this a collect call?
No.
You need to deposit another dime!
Oh, I am the person who talked to you about half an hour ago trying to talk to my friend, Hamid!
Sorry, you did not talk to me!
You helped me finding a Dime in my coins!
You must have talked to a different operator. We have so many operators here!

Again Ring…Ring… Ring and, again, no answer.

Wow!!, I thought. They have so many operators. In Iran, we have only two, one for day shift and one for night. We almost knew their names: Salam Asghar Agha! Salam Agha Reza!

There is no sign of Hamid, I told my wife, so let’s go find a place to sleep till tomorrow going to Oklahoma!

Luckily, the cab driver was Iranian, talking nonstop till he dropped us at a hotel. He must have missed talking Farsi.

I dropped my wife and son in the room and came down to get something to eat. I went straight to a lady behind the desk: