When I was growing up we had a really wonderful set of neighbors next door, named Hamid and Janie (the last name I could not spell if my life depended on it). Hamid and Janie along with their two daughters lived just across the street, and they would often invite us over for delicious meals of cucumber and tomato salad and rice that had a delicious crunchiness on the bottom. Hamid had a really lighthearted laugh, more of a giggle really, and Janie was always willing to babysit us when my sister and I were going to be home by ourselves. I remember asking Hamid, who had a really cool accent, “Where are you from?” He told me, “Oh…I’m from Persia.” I thought about that, and asked my parents about it, because I was fairly certain that there was no such country as Persia at that time. My parents told me that Hamid was from Iran, but that it wasn’t necessarily a “popular” place to be from, so, to avoid negative attitudeshejust told people he was from Persia. I hadn’t really thought about that conversation since I was in junior high, until I started to read “Funny in Farsi” by Firoozeh Dumas.

The thing about laughter is that it totally transcends language barriers, religious beliefs, social status, political affiliations, sexual orientations, and ethnicity. Laughter and humor just take us to a better place, a better consciousness. As I read Firoozeh Dumas’ book, primarily the passages about her culture being associated with cats and rugs, I thought back to my wonderful neighbors and realized what it must have been like for them to deal with the stereotypes about Iranians; what it must have been like for them to have to hide where they came from. Hamid was a very intelligent and hardworking individual, he was an engineer who worked long hours, leaving before the sun was up and coming home late at night sometimes. He was also the first person to make a silly joke, or laugh at someone else’s silly jokes. He had a completely infectious laugh that I can still hear if I stop and imagine it. I’m not sure whosaid“laughter is the best medicine.” I think the original quote was Harry Ward Beecher, who said, “Mirth is God’s best medicine.” If you look around the world, the happiest, most contented individuals seem to have an awareness of how true that statement is. Maybe this has something to do with the fact that when things are at their worst, and everything seems to be going contrary to what you’ve planned there’s this sense of ridiculousness about it all. It might also have to do with the fact that laughter is a part of a person’s spirit that cannot be stolen. When we laugh at the injustices of the world, and poke fun at tyrannical leaders we are able to diffuse the situation, and deflate them; remove their power.

Over the years I have met, worked with, and befriended a number of Iranian-Americans, most of whom never talked a lot about “where they came from.” Hopefully this kind of “Don’t ask, Don’t tell” policy for Americans of middle-eastern descent can be abolished, not unlike the military edict. The commonality that I have noticed amongst Americans who were not born in the United States, but chose to move here is that they know more about America than individuals who were born here. Maybe that is because they view living in America as a treasure, and having the freedoms that we have as sacred.

In India they have groups that meet each day simply for the purpose of laughing. They believe that laughter is capable of healing people and releasing tension. Watching the silly faces of the people in the “laughter club” I felt this wonderful tickle in my belly and the desire to laugh myself. Maybe if we can get the angry and hateful people in the world doing this we can change the world? It might sound simple or stupid but I think it’s possible.

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