Description |
290 pages : illustrations, map ; 23 cm |
Contents |
A force of nature -- From Mashhad to Manhattan -- Old World meets new -- Breaking away -- Lost and found -- Bibi. |
Summary |
Esther Amini grew up in Queens, New York, during the freewheeling 1960s. She also grew up in a Persian-Jewish household, the American-born daughter of parents who had fled Mashhad, Iran. In Concealed, she tells the story of being caught between these two worlds: the dutiful daughter of tradition-bound parents who hungers for more self-determination than tradition allows. Exploring the roots of her father's deep silences and explosive temper, her mother's flamboyance and flights from home, and her own sense of indebtedness to her Iranian-born brothers, Amini uncovers the story of her parents' early years in Mashhad, Iran's holiest Muslim city; the little-known history of Mashhad's underground Jews; the incident that steeled her mother's resolve to leave; and her parents' arduous journey to the U.S., where they faced a new threat to their traditions: the threat of freedom. Determined to protect his only daughter from corruption, Amini's father prohibits talk, books, higher education, and tries to push her into an early Persian marriage instead. Can she resit? Should she? Focused intently on what she stands to gain, Amini eventually comes to see what she also stands to lose: a family and community bound together by food, celebrations, sibling escapades, and unexpected acts of devotion by parents to whom she feels invisible. In this poignant, funny, entertaining, and uplifting memoir, Amini documents with keen eye, quick wit, and warm heart how family members build, buoy, wound, and save one another across generations; how lives are shaped by the demands and burdens of loyalty and legacy; and how she rose to the challenge of deciding what to keep an what to discard. |
Subject |
Amini, Esther -- Family.
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Jews, Iranian -- United States.
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Jews -- United States -- Identity.
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Families. (OCoLC)fst01728849
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Jews -- Identity.
(OCoLC)fst00983278
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Jews, Iranian. (OCoLC)fst00983469
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United States. (OCoLC)fst01204155
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Genre/Form |
Autobiographies. (OCoLC)fst01919894
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Autobiographies.
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ISBN |
9780990619420 (paperback) |
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0990619427 (paperback) |
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9780990619437 (hardcover) |
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0990619435 (hardcover) |
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