The Mystery of America: What I Learned and Love About this Country

By Jalil Mortazavi

Jalil Mortazavi was born in Iran in 1955. In 1976, he came to America, where a series of operations failed to restore his sight. With much help and kindness from others, plus plenty of hard work, he learned English, attained university degrees in communications and counseling psychology, and gained diverse work experience, including in the theatre and radio and as a court interpreter. Eventually, he also married and had a child; his young daughter, Diana, is pictured on the cover with him. Today he works as a freelance journalist based in Boston.
Mr. Mortazavi has written this book out of gratitude to all those who assisted him and showed him such kindness, as well as to the country that became his new home. In it, he attempts to identify and then define the various elements of American society that he sees as unique and of special value. He calls those, collectively, the mystery of America. With joy, humor, and unfailing positivity, he paints a picture of America that we can all hope is at least part of our reality, as well as an ideal.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jalil Mortazavi
• Release date: Mar 2, 2018
• ISBN: 9781370181377

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Dedication

I would like to dedicate this book to my daughter, Diana, who has brought me joy and love, and to my wife, Sara, who brought me Diana. Together, they made my house a home.

I would also like to express my special gratitude to my best friend and confidante, Carol Dennis. Through her unconditional love and patience, she taught me almost everything about America: its culture, customs, and values. My knowledge of holidays and everything that goes with them started in a town called Abington, Massachusetts. Carol and her family taught me how to live, love, and exercise patience.

I must also acknowledge Mr. Mehdi Nikpour, an engineer from Northeastern University. He used to take me to my eye doctors, where he interpreted for me. He also interpreted between me and the Fritz family, with whom I lived. Mehdi always encouraged me regarding my future.

I would also like to recognize Professor Mohammad Dadashzadeh, an engineer from MIT, who used to visit me on a weekly basis and teach me English.

I want to thank Bob Branco (Robert T. Branco), publisher of The Consumer Vision Magazine, for his valuable contribution of organizing my notes.

I would especially like to thank the Carroll Center for the Blind in Newton, Massachusetts, which granted me a full scholarship for 18 weeks so I could learn alternative techniques in order to become an independent blind person.

As for Mr. and Mrs. Fritz, they were very gracious to bring me into their home and look after me before sending me to the Carroll Center.

This is what I call the mystery of America, which is so great. Almost everyone I met was very helpful and accommodating, particularly during a time when I couldn’t speak a word of English.

Introduction

Why did I write this book, and why should you bother to read it? After all, millions of books are available—not only in bookstores, but in libraries and as e–books as well. I might add that many of these books were written by very famous people. These books could be interesting, mediocre, or even dull. The major publishing companies tell us that they have lost millions of dollars that they invested in certain authors and their books. Knowing all of this, how did I have the nerve to write a second book? And why should you bother to read it? This is a fair question.

First of all, I am not looking for financial gain as a result of this book. If it happens, that will be gravy. Primarily, I am hoping to convey a message, to express gratitude for those Americans who helped me gain independence, knowledge, experience, and education without expecting anything in return. That’s why I can define the mystery of America. In every American success story I have read, the person’s success was made up of about 15% technical knowledge and about 85% human engineering and personality.

Simply put, how can we lead people? People who are quite successful in America know how to make others comfortable and arouse enthusiasm in them. This is another example of the mystery of America and what American greatness is all about.

In 1975, while in my late teens in my home country of Iran, I developed a detached retina due to a car accident. I went for two operations in the capital city, Tehran. But I was not entirely happy with the results, especially at night, when I couldn’t see that well. After considerable research with the help of family and friends, I sought a second opinion. I discovered a retina specialist who had been educated in Germany and had several years of experience working in German hospitals and eye clinics. He had returned to Iran two years earlier and was working in one of the well−known hospitals in Tehran. I made an appointment to see him in hopes of having further treatment. What happened in that doctor’s office changed my entire life, resulting in my moving to America.

As I was sitting in the examination chair, the doctor was questioning me about my eyes and what had happened to me, particularly the kind of operation I had in the past. There were two other young doctors standing a couple of feet away, huddled in conversation.

At that moment, a nurse came into the office carrying a young boy, approximately five or six years old. The boy’s eyes had patches over them. It appeared he had had an eye operation from the same doctor. The nurse was bringing him to see the doctor, and the doctor immediately stopped the conversation with me and attended to the child. As he was opening the boy’s eye patch, he was trying to make sweet talk with him. As I recall, the doctor told him what a good boy he was, how good−looking he was, and that he would give his daughter in marriage to the boy when he grew up. (It’s a very traditional culture.)

I sat there and listened to them. When those two younger doctors heard the discussion between this famous doctor and the little boy, one of them told the other in a condescending tone that this doctor must hate girls. I assume he meant that the boy would probably end up blind, and thus would not be good husband material, so the senior doctor must hate his own daughter if he could think of marrying her off to a blind man. When I heard this comment, I was shocked and upset. Imagine living in such a country, in a society that would allow such behavior, especially among doctors whose job it was to care for people with eye trouble.

I decided to leave my country, hoping to get my eyesight back before I returned. I sought another opinion from a doctor who was educated in the United States, specifically in Boston, Massachusetts. He recommended that I go to the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary in Boston for further treatment. I felt that if I could get any positive results at all, it would be there.

At this point, I had never heard of Boston, and I had little knowledge of America. The only things I knew about the United States had to do with the moon landing, Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the moon, and Watergate.

With the help of many friends, I raised enough funds in order to go to the American embassy in Tehran and obtain a visa for six months. After I received my visa, I couldn’t help but think that it was God’s plan for me to go to the United States, do what I could in order to regain my vision, and then return home.

It was a cold, wintry day in January of 1976. I arrived at Logan International Airport at 2:30 in the morning. Naturally, the clinic wasn’t open that early. I didn’t have anywhere to go after the 12–hour flight, and I was tired. I decided to lie down in the airport near the radiator and go to sleep. When I woke up at 7:30 in the morning, the airport’s security officer helped me find the dining room for breakfast. He actually bought me breakfast, which consisted of scrambled eggs, home fries, a glass of orange juice, and a cup of coffee. I don’t know who the security officer was, but the breakfast he bought me was delicious.

After that, the security officer helped me find a cab and told the driver to take me to the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary. When I arrived at Mass Eye and Ear, they looked at my papers, my name, and appointment time. They couldn’t speak to me because of the language barrier. The nurse was much more prepared. She sent for someone from Iran who spoke Farsi. After several hours and a few necessary tests, I was admitted and shown to my room on the tenth floor.

After three weeks and two operations, my vision did not improve. My doctor suggested that I go to a rehabilitation school. While I was learning alternative techniques, he could see me again in six months.

During my stay in the hospital, everyone was very kind, helpful, and encouraging. They didn’t feel sorry for me, and I never sensed a condescending attitude. Even though my vision hasn’t gotten better, I compared the attitudes of the staff at Mass Eye and Ear with those two young doctors at the clinic in Tehran. As I said earlier, you can probably find many places, including Iran, where people possess a good amount of technical knowledge, which professionals such as doctors use in order to help us. However, for them to be truly outstanding at their jobs, a large part of their more general knowledge needs to be about attitude and behavior, how to handle people.

Many years ago, at the University of Chicago, a study was conducted about what adults wanted to do with their lives. This was a major study for the university, and it took two years to do it. They asked each person 152 questions, such as, What is your occupation? What is your educational background? How do you spend your spare time? What kinds of hobbies do you have? What is your ambition? What kinds of problems are you experiencing? and If given the chance, what would you like to study?

One of the most common things that this research revealed was that people wanted to learn how to get along with one another. They wanted to find out more about others, to learn how to make people like them, and to learn how they could make others feel better. In short, it was determined that the most important topic for a vast majority of the people who took the survey was human relations.

I discovered this myself when dealing with Americans and their attitudes toward me. It was very comforting to me during this difficult time in my life. I saw a huge difference in attitude between Americans and those doctors in Iran who were dealing with the little boy with eye trouble. This is not just a theory or an assumption. It was my own personal experience, and it made me feel good every day.

While I was in the hospital, there was a sign above my bed that said, Patient is blind, does not speak English, but speaks Persian and Turkish. One of the nurses at the hospital, who was a member of the Park Street Church in Boston, told my story at the church, to the director of an international group. His name was Joe, and he could speak several languages, including Turkish. He came to visit me in the hospital.

The day before I was released from Mass Eye and Ear, a man by the name of Joseph Sabounji came to see me. He was the director of the International Student Group and the host family of Park Street Church in Boston.

Joe greeted me in Turkish, which I know very well. We exchanged information about ourselves, and he told me that he wanted to introduce me to an American family. This family, who had expressed an interest in and knowledge of Middle Eastern culture, wanted to meet me. I felt the same way about them, so the day I was released from the hospital, Joe took me to his