Unsentimental Journey

You haven't been where Mike Mahmoodi has. Not that your story and his are all that different

Amaydeeka feefty? Amaydeeka feefty?

Nobody knew what Hadi Mahmoodi was talking about. He was with the homeless people in Lafayette Park, across the street from the White House, a clean-shaven kid in blue jeans -- two suitcases, no clue. It was past dark on a late-summer evening in 1974. He had come directly to the park from the airport in a taxi -- had flown to Washington from New York, to New York from Rome, to Rome from Tehran. What he remembers most about the day he left Iran was the crowd at the airport, clusters of family members gathered around all the boys who were going to America. "You are going! You the man!" they said. All the boys except Mahmoodi. I had nobody as a visitor. That was a depressing situation. I was right there with two suitcases and nobody.

Mahmoodi wished more than anything that his father had been there. His father was an important man, a self-made man -- a mechanic who became a taxi driver and later head of the taxi driver's union in Shiraz, the city in southwestern Iran where Mahmoodi grew up. Mahmoodi's father had a high school diploma but not a college degree. For his children, he wanted more. It was high priority that you had to be educated. It was the #1 thing. If you were making it to college, you were really a top-notch person. Your family would be proud of you. Whenever Mahmoodi asked his father for money to go to the movies, the answer was no. One time, though, Mahmoodi asked his father for a desk. A desk was truly extravagant. No one Mahmoodi knew had a personal desk, not even his teacher at school. But Mahmoodi was clever; he knew how to frame the question. I was sitting next to my dad one day. I said, "You know, if I had a desk like this picture, I would study better." The next day I had the desk.

After he got his education, Mahmoodi would be going to America. That was his dream and also his father's dream. It was practically everybody's dream in Shiraz. " Oh, my son or my daughter is in America. He's doing wonderful, she's doing wonderful." In America one could own a hotel or a restaurant. One could be an engineer or a physician or a mathematician. If you were making it in America, that was a totally different story. It was a dream for parents to send their children to America. They dreamed it for their children, and they dreamed it for themselves.

When Mahmoodi was 13, his father was in a car accident and died. It was a very difficult time from then on. It was a large family. The man was gone, and we had to take care of things ourselves.

A little more than a year after the death, his mother remarried. Eventually, Mahmoodi would forgive her -- she was still a young woman, with seven children to care for (an eighth, Mahmoodi's sister, was already married) -- but there was no room in young Mahmoodi's heart for a new father. If you get married, as soon as the guy comes in, I leave. She did, and Mahmoodi left. From then on, he was on his own, an outcast. For the next two years, while he finished high school, Mahmoodi lived with the families of friends and classmates, moving from house to house. He worked in his father's old garage, tearing engines apart to earn his keep. At times he regretted having broken with his family, but regret was pointless -- the break was complete. I saw my brother in the streets, and I said hello to him. He said, "You are a shame for our family. You have no right to tell me hello. You are not my brother."

Mahmoodi graduated when he was 16 and enlisted in the Shah's army; with no money and no scholarship, he had no other choice. But he didn't forget about America. As soon as his two years were up, he found a counselor, who, for a few hundred dollars, helped him obtain an acceptance letter from George Washington University, in Washington, D.C. I called my brother, and I said, "I know you don't want to talk to me, but I want to just tell you one thing." He said, "I don't want to know." I said, "I'm leaving the country, and I'm going to the United States." He said, "Good."

And so it was that Hadi "Mike" Mahmoodi came to America. He was not yet 19. His English was useless. He thinks now that he probably inadvertently insulted the cab driver who picked him up from the airport, and the driver put him out at Lafayette Park from spite. I was trying to tell this cab driver that I'm really a nice guy, don't worry about it, because I was afraid he was going to, like, kill me. Mahmoodi sat on the bench in the park, clutching his suitcases. I did not close my eyes that night. It occurred to him that maybe he had gotten on the wrong plane and landed in the wrong country. He sure didn't see any engineers or physicians or mathematicians. Is this America? he wondered. America with 50 states?

Amaydeeka feefty?

We already know where this story is going.

Hadi Mahmoodi, starting from zero, will lift himself up. He'll learn English, perform menial labor for long hours at low pay, suffer insult, injury, and humiliation, and disappear into the crowd, only to start his own business, succeed wildly, regain the love and respect of his family, and ultimately rise above the crowd. It's a classic tale, told many times in America with countless variations, and not just by entrepreneurs. Its appeal to the listener is a function of the distance traveled -- the journey from being nobody to being somebody, from despair through hope to redemption.

If we're jaded, it's because so many people tell their hard-luck tales for manipulative reasons -- to win capital, accolades, or votes. Those tales also satisfy a genuine human need -- a hankering in successful people to somehow account for their own success.