I am rereading the book "To see and see again". There is one part when the author says that a classmate tells her "Go home Iranian." It reminded me of an incident I had in the 4th grade. We had come to the US for the summer but then the war with Iraq broke out and all flights to Iran were cancelled and we got stuck in the US. They enrolled us in school. There was a curly haired kid in my class that every time they took us outside to play wall ball, he would call me Iranian and pretend he had a machine gun and be firing bullets at me, most of the time in the presence of a teacher. They never said anything to him.
"My parents, brother, and I left Iran in 1980, shortly after the revolution. After a brief stay in Italy, we packed all our belongings once again and headed west to the exotic and the unknown: Vancouver. We had recently been accepted as landed immigrants, meaning Canada graciously opened its doors and we gratefully accepted; we arrived at Vancouver International Airport on my 10th birthday, three suitcases and one sewing machine in tow. After respectful but intense questioning at immigration, we were dropped off at a hotel on Robson Street, which was then still a couple years shy of becoming the fashionable tourist hub it is today. We were jetlagged, culture shocked, and hungry, so that first night, my father and brother courageously ventured out into the wild in search of provisions. I fell asleep before they returned. The next morning, I woke up at 5 a.m. and ravenously feasted on a cold Quarter Pounder with cheese and limp French fries that had been left by my beds...

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