Fifth in a series. 

Re: “Could a Refugee’s Life Be More Perfect?”

My Iranian friend, who became an American immigrant three years ago, recently returned from a trip to the homeland she once escaped from. Ebulliently, she was boasting about numerous cosmetic discoveries – restoring her youthfulness – that she had found in Iran.

I asked her about the price of each injection. After calculating the exchange rate, she said
the cheekbones cost $3,000, the chin was $4,500, the eyebrows and forehead were $2,000.

The irony of it all.

We were spending the afternoon walking along the beautiful beach in Santa Monica.

At the very moment she was listing the thousands of dollars her injections had cost, a homeless man approached.

He asked for a dollar for his lunch.

Noticeably dirty and dressed poorly, he also was shoeless.

Such a startling contrast.

My friend told me that as a refugee from Iran who fled here seeking political asylum, she carries a white passport indicating a refugee’s status.

As an asylum seeker, she was saying that if she had stayed in Iran, she would have been killed or imprisoned.

Astonished, I asked my friend how she could return to the dangers of Iran, even for a visit.

“You receive food stamps,” I said, and still you buy an airline ticket that costs more than $2,000. How can you do that?”

She laughed at my ignorance.

“First,” she said, “if they ask any questions, I will tell them that my mother, my brother or my sons have sent me the ticket so that we can visit with each other.

“Then I took the flight to Paris where I stayed with a friend. We had a great time. I could have taken my ticket to Germany, to Turkey or to any city in the world.

“The way my American white passport is stamped proves the country where I have stayed.

“From there, I obtained a round trip ticket to Iran. I flew to Iran, with my regular Iranian passport.

“When I travelled back,” she said, “I used my Iranian passport again to leave the country for Paris and then I came back with the American papers.

“The official stamp showed I was four months in Paris! Voila!”

(To be continued)

Dr. Rosemary Hartounian Cohen, who lives in the Fairfax District, received her Ph.D in sociology from the Sorbonne in Paris. She lived in two other countries before moving, with her husband and four children, to Los Angeles in 1984. She has published five books in America. Since 1985, she has operated Atelier de Paris, an international art business, on Robertson Boulevard. Her email address is Rosemary@atelierdeparis.com.