Interview with Bruce Nowzari, History 150 Spring 2020, Conducted by Roujon Aranowzari, March 7, 2020.

Biography:

Bruce Nowzari (born Behrooz Nowzari) was born in the small rural area of Abadan, Iran, a border city that was home of the BP [British Petroleum]-controlled Abadan Refinery. At the age of 19, he immigrated to the United States in 1976, only a few years before the Iranian Revolution. While studying mechanical engineering in Mobile, Alabama, he faced discrimination and prejudice during the hostage crisis. In 1980, he helped his mother, grandmother, cousins, and siblings flee Iran during the Iran-Iraq conflict and find refuge in Toronto, Canada. He received an MS in mechanical engineering at the University of Alabama and was later naturalized in 1984. He currently owns a construction company called ACE Design and resides in Ashburn, Virginia with his twin daughters, Roujon and Roujeen.

Research:

In 1979, the Iranian people overthrew the pro-West Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and instated Ayatollah Khomeini, who established an anti-Western, Islamic theocracy. This led to several Iranian college students taking over the U.S. embassy in Iran, keeping 52 Americans hostage in the Iran Hostage Crisis. In 1980, Saddam Hussein invaded Iran, fearing the new Shi’a regime. Khomeini rejected the offer of a ceasefire in 1982 and the war went on for six more years. Saddam used chemical warfare against the Iranians and his own people. In 1988, a ceasefire was agreed to. The war left many Iranians  disillusioned about the new Islamic regime.

Iranian immigrants came to the United States in two major waves. The first wave occurred a couple of years prior to the Revolution and consisted of mostly upper class citizens who worked closely with the Shah or students seeking college abroad. The second wave occurred after the Revolution and into the Iran-Iraq war, and the majority of immigrants were people seeking asylum from the devastation. The United States was the favored destination because of the quality of universities and technical schools. After the hostage crisis, U.S. visas became much harder to obtain, so many Iranians went to other countries to obtain a U.S. visa, such as Turkey or Germany.

Citations:

Bozorgmehr, Mehdi. “Iran.” In The New Americans: A Guide to Immigration Since 1965, edited by Mary C. Waters, Reed Ueda, and Helen B. Marrow. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2007.

Hakimzadeh, David Dixon Shirin, and David Dixon. “Spotlight on the Iranian Foreign Born.” Migrationpolicy.org, Migration Policy Institute, 2 Mar. 2017.

Hardy, Roger. “Middle East | The Iran-Iraq War: 25 Years On.” BBC News, BBC, 22 Sept. 2005.

Transcription:

RA: Hi, could you introduce yourself, please?

Bruce Nowzari: My name is Bruce Nowzari.

RA: Okay, so we’re going to talk about your experience with the Iranian Revolution and coming to the United States. So first I just want you to answer- can you please describe, like, what Abadan was like, and Iran in general before the revolution?

BN: Yes, I was born in Abadan, this city in the south of Iran. Abadan was built by the British so there was a lot of English language. Speaking, terminology, and schools were a British type. And it was totally different than the rest of Iran. Iran was under a dictatorship at the time before revolution, unfortunately, but as far as the economics, it was a good economy. Iran and the U.S. were very, very close allies, even better than the U.S and Canada, or the U.S and Israel.

RA: Okay, and why did you decide to leave Iran?

BN: After I graduated from high school, the majority of people, they wanted to come to the U.S. As I said, the relationship between the U.S and Iran was so good. You could take an English exam. And if you pass, you could come and get the student visa to come to the U.S to study. At the time, Iranian- because of OPEC, the money was flowing pretty good in Iran. And it was very easy to buy an airline ticket and come to the U.S for higher education. I came to the U.S and to, honestly, personally for me, to leave a dictatorship.

RA: And how would you describe living under a dictatorship?

BN: Very difficult. He [the Shah] had a secret police named SAVAK and they would storm houses. If you’re reading books or any intellectual- or intellect, they will arrest. At the end, before the revolution, it was very hard. SAVAK was very aggressive in arresting the people.

RA: And I remember you telling me about you hiding books and reading them. Can you please tell me about that for the interview?

BN: There were- these books were sold in bookstores and SAVAK would say, “Oh yeah, we’ll let the people to go and buy these books so we can identify people interested in intellectual materials.”  And these were like from monkey to human, about evolution books, not necessarily anything against the Shah or the regime or the government. And I just remember vividly one time, to hide them, I hid them inside the window air conditioning and my poor dad brought a maintenance guy to service the AC unit and they found the books and my dad took it outside and burned all those books and I think I had, like 20 books and I was so, so sad that they burned my books. But, now that I think back, my dad wanted the best for me. At the time I was angry, but he knew if the SAVAK would catch me, they’d put me in jail.

RA: And can you describe what living in the United States was like? Before and after the revolution?

BN: Yeah, when I came here it was 1976 and, people were very friendly. I did not have enough money, so I moved to Alabama- to Mobile, Alabama, which is a very poor city. But people were friendly. Uneducated, a lot of uneducated people. And I had to work in shipyards and with uneducated people that- they didn’t even have a sixth grade education. There were intellectuals in the U.S and the majority of course were not- they were uneducated.

RA: And that was like your life before the hostage crisis, or like-

BN: Yeah, that was. That was the life before the hostage crisis. Everything was very, very reasonable, cheap. But the gas, I remember was 71 cents a gallon. And, even in Texas, I put 51 cents a gallon, 49 cents a gallon. So life was cheap and carefree.

RA: How would you describe it afterwards? During the revolution?

BN: I think 1979 was a turning point, not only for Iran or theU.S. It was for the world. Unfortunately, the dictatorship of the Shah brought another bad regime of ayatollahs to Iran. And things got really worse, especially after taking hostages. And I even had arguments with my- some of my Iranian friends. I thought it was illegal. It was an act of violence and they should have not taken hostages. The worst part was that the Americans, they saw me as Iranian and blamed me and most Iranians, they saw me as too Americanized and blamed me and I was right in the middle of it. And I think taking hostages was the worst thing that happened, and since then, for the Iranian government, and the Iranian people.

RA: And I remember you told me a story about you trying to find a job in the United States and with your transcript. Can you please share that story again for the interview?

BN: Absolutely, yes. When I came here, I didn’t have enough money, so I tried to find a job. I was good at welding and I had a little bit experience with with pipe fitting. So I would go to factories and, in my broken English, the only thing I learned was, “I’m looking for a job”. And the answer would be “What kind of job?”. “Any kind of job”. So I went to this factory. The receptionist was in the back, the only thing was there was a phone. You pick up the phone, apparently, the phone will ring in the back office, and they will pick up. So the lady picked up and I said- she said, “How can I help you?” And I said, “I’m looking for a job” “what kind of job?” and I said, “Any kind of job”. She said, “Okay, I’m bringing an application. Hang up the phone, please”. Unfortunately, I did not understand what “hang up the phone” meant. So I was holding the phone. Apparently if she hung up, her phone would ring. And she kept saying “hang up the phone, please”. I didn’t know. So I was holding the phone, she repeated. Finally, in two minutes, she walked to the front, and she took the receiver from my hand, hung up the phone and said, “Hang up the phone, please”. I was so embarrassed. And, apparently, I did not get the job.

RA: And what about the story with you and, like, after you graduated?

BN: Yeah. So I graduated. Obviously, when I went to college, I did not know. So on my application was, you know, “my name is Behrooz”, my given name, and, you know, “born in Iran, Abadan”. And then, when I graduated, I sent my transcript and the colleges, universities, they will send your transcript out. I would not get any phone calls. So I said- I got suspicious. I said “they probably see in my transcript that I was born in Iran, and my name is Behrooz”. So I changed my name to Bruce. And I went to the university. And there was a nice, older lady there. And I said, “Ma’am, I think there has been a mistake. I was born in Chicago, Illinois”, because I had to get a job. And she says, “Oh, I’m so sorry”. And I said, “Yeah, on my transcript someone said, ‘Abadan, Iran'”. So she’s- she went back there and came back after two, three minutes. She brought my original application. She said, “Sir, but this is your own handwriting”! It was so embarrassing, but nevertheless, I grabbed the paper and I crossed it. I said “no, it was mistake. I’m from- I was born in Chicago, Illinois”. And right after that I got a job, when I sent my transcript with “Bruce” and “born in Chicago, Illinois”.

RA: So can you please describe how, like what Iran was like for your family back at home?

BN: Iran, after revolution, got even worse. And the worst was after the war with Iraq. Saddam Hussein invaded and the first cities were Abadan and Khorramshahr, in southern- we were, I remember when I was in sixth grade. I could walk down the river, I would see Iraq. At the border was just a river. So my family, unfortunately, became war refugees. They went to different cities. And they were not welcome, even in Iran. Other cities, they were telling them “why don’t you go back to Abadan and defend the city?”. And these are women and children that cannot defend the city. So, it was then that I decided to bring them out of the country.

RA: And how did you help them leave?

BN: It was a long process. I did not have enough money at the time. I got three jobs. So I started smuggling all of them at the time. It was much easier to go to Canada. I could not bring them to the U.S. So, one-by-one, I would go to Turkey, Yugoslavia at the time. Germany, Austria. And I would smuggle them one-by-one to Canada. Canada was very open. As soon as you would say like “I’m coming from another country”, like they would- if they had a fake passport, if they had- they didn’t have a passport, they would let them in. So now all of them are in Canada. Very, very happy and very successful.

RA: And how many people did you bring over?

BN: About eight, nine of them, including my grandma at the time. She was 81-years-old. She couldn’t speak any English, of course, but they- we could not leave her back home. Mom, brothers, and sisters, and cousins.

RA: So, can you compare living as an Iranian American today versus back then when you first came here? What things do you think have changed and what things have you- have stayed the same?

BN: Yeah, as far as the society, of course, society has got much better. A lot more educated people, but unfortunately an uneducated state, more uneducated. It’s a divided country at the moment. We’re talking about 2020, under this administration. The uneducated, unfortunately, they think they lost the jobs because the foreigners took the jobs. It’s not due to their lack of education. The educated ones, they are very receptive, understanding. For myself, I have been very successful and most of it is due to American education, higher education, and reading tons of tons of business books. And those helped me to become successful. One of them, or the first one probably, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. And that helped me a lot to understand American societies. And other business books. So, I’ve learned a lot about- from Americans in American society. And a lot of people along the way helped me to succeed. A lot of them were against me because, as soon as they found out that I’m Iranian, it was easy for them to identify me as the enemy. And even nowadays, when I go places in business, I do not identify myself as Iranian. It’s just- I look at it as packaging, because I will bring a lot of hostility upon myself, unnecessarily. I’m not here to defend the Iranian government because I disagree- totally disagree with them. But unfortunately, that brings a negative part on my- on me if I tell them I’m Iranian, and it will negatively affect my business and my relationships.

RA: So I’m going off of that: do you consider yourself more Iranian or more American, or a mix of the two? How do you identify yourself now?

BN: Intellectually, I will see both ways. I’ve been lucky enough to pick the best of the both. In business and a lot of social, I would see myself as American. In a lot of places I see myself as Iranian. Unfortunately, I’ve seen a lot of Iranians say “Oh, we don’t have- we’re neither Iranian nor American”. But I- I would say that I got the best of both. And I enjoy the best of both. I enjoy Iranian foods and American foods. And I’m not- I’m very open minded to both cultures, and I think both cultures have a lot to offer.

RA: Thank you so much for taking this time to interview with me.

BN: Absolutely. Thank you. One of the best thing I gotta say that one of the best thing happened to me was coming to- to the U.S, to America. The other one is having my twin daughters, Roujon and Roujeen, and I’ve learned so much from them. I’ve learned more from them than they learned from me. And that’s a true statement, and the best- the best that ever happened. And thank you for the opportunity.

RA: Thank you.

 

Overview of interview process: This interview was conducted in person, at my house in Ashburn, Virginia. I rented a Digital Audio Recorder from JMU and the interview was not edited in any way. 

Conclusion: I really enjoyed the interview. It felt like I was talking to my dad one-on-one rather than interviewing him. I heard a lot of the stories he talked about in the interview beforehand, and I think that helped the interview in some ways. For example, when my dad mentioned something that he didn’t say in our pre-interview, it reminded me of a story he’s told me and I would ask him to talk about it. I think the interview flowed pretty well, but I don’t think some of my responses conveyed my genuine interest as well as they could have. I think my dad stayed on-topic for the most part, but I kind of wished he didn’t mention my sister and me at the end of the interview. He didn’t say that in the pre-interview and I don’t want people to think I made him say that. I also thought the discussion about oil prices and business books took away from some of his points.