My Life, from Iran to America

By Angelina Schoefer

This book is about the determined story of Angelina and her family and the hardships they faced while leaving Iran and reaching freedom in the United States. Growing up amid the stable government of the Shah of Iran then living through the political and cultural turmoil of the Iranian revolution that began in 1975, Angelina managed to complete her bachelor of arts in English and became a teacher. But it was fraught with hardship. As a single parent, she had to protect her children from an increasingly hostile government yet had to continue seeking ways to escape the harsh environment. Finally reaching the United States, the ugly head of discrimination in higher education in California universities revealed itself—another chapter in her struggle to improve herself and her children. The story shows how she dealt with this discrimination and the outcome it eventually brought.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 26, 2017
• ISBN: 9781543417623

Angelina Schoefer

Angelina grew up in Arak, a large city in northwestern Iran. She travelled all over Iran teaching students in various school districts. She was in Iran when the 1975 cultural and political revolution occurred and still managed to obtain her BA in English. Determined to seek safety in the U.S., she endured many hardships getting her family to safety and later joining them. Encountering discrimination in California universities, Angelina finally obtained her Master’s degree in Education Counseling. She resides in California and her hobbies include music, sewing, crafts, knitting, and loves nature.

Book preview

MY STORY

FROM IRAN

TO THE USA

CHAPTER 1

SUMMER OF 1968

L IFE IS SWEET if you think positive. To me life is like an ocean, beautiful and wide, with many nice and gentle waves. It is good to be relaxed and enjoy the beauty of, and having fun with, movement like water easily going up and down. We should be flexible, like a wave. When you fall down you use more energy to come backup, but it is better to always try to get up. Moments will pass and you will get behind if you stay down. Another way to look at it, life can be like a chess game. You, as a chess player, think hard and cleverly to make your move and complete your plan for your next move. Sometimes we don’t get every thing we expect or find the correct road to get to the point where we want to be. Sometimes your life as an ocean has nasty waves, and you are without the power to handle it and live up to your responsibilities. It seems your plans should change and you need start all over again. Do you think this is part of a test we are taking in our life? If so, we have to pass this test. Let me share my ocean life with you.

As an Iranian girl, I was born and raised in a family, half who were educated and were government employees, the other half being rich and owning businesses. They didn’t have a difficult time working as employees earning money for their daily living.

My father was a young teacher and my mom was a beautiful, young girl who had a comfortable life as a teenager. She was my dad’s cousin and they started their life with love. That was their fortune, and they had chosen well.

I was their second child. I had finished high school and planned to continue my education in the medical field. Unfortunately, going to college and continuing my education was not easy. It is the same today in Iran. I expected that I would move to Europe, join my brother, and go to medical school. That was my plan for the future. My parents didn’t mind, but my grandparents didn’t agree with me. They didn’t want me to be apart from my country. I was hoping that my brother, a student in Germany, would come and convince my grandparents otherwise. If so, then I had chance to reach my goal, but I knew my brother couldn’t come until next year. As a student, he had to be at his school until he finished the school year.

My dad asked me to apply for a teaching job so I would be busy until my brother came back to Iran. He and my mom told me they didn’t mind if I wanted to go with my brother. I didn’t want a teaching job. My uncle was in charge of hiring teachers in the Education Department. He was pushing me to take a temporary job as an elementary school teacher. In Iran at that time, teaching was the only safe choice for high school graduate girls like me. It was reasonable, so I took the exam, passed, and became a teacher.

I was not happy going to school and spending time with kids, but after few months teaching every day, I became more involved with the students. My dad’s first job was a teacher, but he transferred to be a government employee as an economic director. Because of his job, he had to move to different places—where the government sent him. Sometimes every six months, or maybe once a year, we all changed our home and followed my dad’s job.

When I became a teacher I couldn’t go with my parents anymore. I had to be in my hometown and continue my job. I enjoyed helping my dad with his responsibilities as much as I could and doing my own job, too. My dad was very happy with my help in taking care of my younger siblings. It was good that my sisters and brothers had the chance to be in the same school all year. Also, I supervised workers in my dad’s agricultural business, as well. So, all told, my parents kept me busy helping with all these responsibilities. I was managing everything. Teaching became my permanent job without me knowing that my parents and grandparents had planned this for me. To me, it seemed that I was completely in charge of everything.

I forgot all about going to Europe or that my brother would come back from Germany to visit us after his school year. Originally, I had hoped to go with him to continue my education, but when he came back, I told my parents that he couldn’t take on my responsibilities if I was in another country. I was busy with my teaching job, and tried to be happy with all I had. I decided to stay and expand my education in the teaching system. I found a way to continue my education to be a professional teacher. I had a chance to organize my time and use the extra time for taking courses that the Education Department was offering to their official teachers. They were mostly summer classes, but sometimes I could take a series of courses at night, too.

My schedule in school was a daily program. Teachers and students were supposed to be at school six hours a day. Every Thursday school was only from 8 AM until 12 noon. Friday, and half of Thursday, was considered the weekend. Saturday was the first day of the week. There were some official holidays too.

I was surprised that I had been teaching almost two years. I couldn’t believe how deeply I was attracted to the students every day. It became my happy and busy time. I kept thinking of ways to take more courses that the Education Department offered. I wanted to become more technical and knowledgeable in the job. The point that I remembered, moving state to state with my parents when I was a student, was that I didn’t have to be in the same school or same city for one year to finish my schooling. We often moved in the middle of the school year to different parts of Iran with my parents.

Unfortunately, as a student, any new school I was assigned, I had to start all over with different books. Education Departments were not using the same books throughout the country and there were different systems. Also, transferring employees was not considered to be a big concern during the school year. The government wasn’t concerned that their employee’s children should be just in one school for the full year. I remember one year I changed schools three times and used three different sets of books. I was confused and had to start all over with the new books with different subjects and get used to a new system. Of course, competing with other students was not possible.

Always, I had private tutors at home and had to spend more time to cover the parts I fell behind. I had problems during all six years of elementary school. In my new teaching job, I was searching for more classes to take and learning how to be more helpful for the students. Besides, my interest was teaching the English language. It was my favorite subject, and I received two years of college credit as Director in Teaching. Most of the subjects in that area were in Child Psychology, and all of it was in the English language. The college I registered in was just during summer. It was part of the Education Department’s program, and because of that I had a chance to take that course. It occupied me fulltime because school was closed and I had enough time to work on it. Fortunately, I successfully finished those two years of college.

I received a permanent transfer from elementary to middle school for English teaching. In my new job I searched for more courses. Now, after five years teaching English in the middle schools, I was promoted to Principal for the new middle school. It was the best way I could be closer to reach the children and to have a chance to make a difference in the education system. I didn’t want the students to have the same problems as I had during my childhood when I was a student.

The education program had just one teacher for one class for all subjects at the elementary level. It was a point that got my attention the most—choose different teachers with special skills for each subject in the program. There were three student levels in the middle school program in my school. The hours ranged from 8 AM to 1 PM, 2 PM to 4 PM, and after 5 PM. I had night classes.

I had planned to continue taking courses for my B.A. degree with a major in English. I also had to manage my new schedule with my assistants. Fortunately, it worked for me. I had taken four years to get my B.A. during the time I was a middle school principal.

Also, politically, I had been offered the job to be mayor for the city I was living and working in. As I was active in the Education Department I also had another offer for a new job as Director of Education. I accepted to continue with the Education Department. That meant taking care of 16 schools.

Unfortunately, politicians in our country were starting to change our system. The situation in Iran was warming up and becoming wild. People were worrying about their families and their country. It soon became a Revolution. 1975 was a disaster situation everywhere in Iran.

Before the Iranian Revolution in 1975, girls and boys studied together, taking the same classes at the same school. Now, after the revolution, unfortunately, the new system separated students. The students were divided into a school for boys and a school for girls.

American student’s freedom in schools was interesting to me. Also, in Europe, girls and boys who graduated from their high schools at age eighteen, had a big social party. It was exactly the opposite with Iranian teenage boy and girls, and they were kept apart from each other.

As my first job was teaching in elementary classes, my experience carried over from my career as a teacher in Iran and in Germany with the Americans. On Army bases in American schools, I didn’t have any problem teaching. I was interested in learning how to conduct classes in different cultures, in different subjects. It was pretty simple for me to adapt, especially when teachers didn’t have to teach multiple subjects in one class, and could concentrate on just one subject. It allowed teachers to provide more value in their subject matter, and student achievement could progress faster. In addition, computers and calculators were available for the students. Students didn’t have to use their memories as they did in Iran. I felt comfortable teaching in U.S. schools—it didn’t take all of the teacher’s time, kids could learn faster, and they were not kept apart from each other.

CHAPTER 2

I N 1974, MY parents were living in England. My son, Piam, was living with his father in Tehran, Iran. I was living with my two other children in Karaj, 25 miles away. Piam told me about his upcoming scheduled trip to U.S. He had a one-night stopover in England. I made arrangements to take two of my other children on