I am Irani-Iraqi and grew up in Tehran.  Iran was in a middle of a war with Iraq.  Our city was bombed at night. My mom was scared that I would be sent off to fight in the war like other children my age.  She was scared that we would die.  She decided that we needed to leave our homeland.

Although my sister and I had a visa, mom did not. We traveled to Pakistan, with my stepdad who was from there, a man she did not love.  He abused all of us physically. 

Mom’s visa was secured after a year.  Our family arrived in America with a hundred dollars and a couple of suitcases. 

I enrolled in an elementary school.  My English was terrible.  The teacher asked me to memorize the national anthem before I started my first day in class.  I worked so hard to do that.  I performed it for the class.  Then she asked me to recite Texas’s state anthem. I could not and everyone laughed at me.   I had no friends in school and the children made fun of the way I talked.  

We moved to northern California and lived in a small apartment. People were kinder.  Mom worked at a deli.  Stepdad at a gas station. My new elementary school teacher, Ms. Gilbert, told the students about me before I showed up.  She assigned me friends!  They are still my friends. 

School was better but the abuse at home kept getting worse.  This is a poem I wrote that was published locally:

Who am I?
I am a boy in a mirror.
The reflection of a praised soul
With beautiful brown eyes like the skin of a bear
The mirror thinks I am just a Pegasus but I don’t have wings
The mirrors says your body does not have wings, your soul does

One day stepdad hit mom so hard that I threw up.  Over time mom learned that she could ask for help.  He was arrested. They divorced.  He was later deported.   

I started working when I was thirteen.  Washed dishes, bussed tables, and made pizzas.  Then in the ninth grade, mom was diagnosed with Lymphoma.  She worked full-time selling car insurance while she fought with the disease. 

After high school, I went to community college and worked in real estate, real estate finance, insurance, and taxation.  I moved to New York City to study arts at university.  I was involved in theater and wrote two books of poetry.  Mom’s passing in 2001 refocused my world. I sought out counseling and confronted my past.  During this journey, I dedicated my life to helping others.

I went to law school in California.  Practiced for four years and began to teach law school in the Bay Area before moving to Seattle to serve as a Federal Public Defender.  In 2022, after thirteen years in criminal law, I became a plaintiff lawyer.

I am an adjunct professor at Seattle University, lecture about legal subjects to my peers and the court, am in leadership in the Federal Bar Association, and volunteer with organizations that teach civics to the public.

Mom, before her death and to this day, teaches me courage, resilience, and empathy. She teaches me to never give up on myself, never run away when life presents challenges, and stand up for those who cannot stand up for themselves.