Daughters of the Iranian Revolution

Asal Mirzahossein was born and raised in the United States, but her stomach remains ever faithful to her parents' native Iran, where, like the Eskimos with their varied words for snow, Persians revel in rice in its myriad forms. Basmati rice with lentils is Asal's home-cooked Persian meal of choice. Another favorite is baklava cake, a moist pillow of a dessert made fragrant by an Iranian baking staple: rose water.

"We put rose water in every Iranian pastry I can think of. It's the aroma," says the 22-year-old aspiring English teacher from San Diego. Asal believes rose water is soothing for digestion.

Along with pastries, savory khoresh (stews) and kebabs are one way Asal keeps her Persian heritage alive, but it's not the only way. She also grew up learning to speak and write Farsi (correctly, she emphasizes), taking note of her father's vigilant attention to developments in his home country. Several times a day, the 55-year-old businessman checks the BBC for the latest political news on Iran, printing out numerous articles that he adds to his stacks of papers on the subject.

Asal vividly remembers her visit to Iran at the age of 7. There, she watched friends and family stirring waist-high vats of rice in preparation for a neighborhood feast. She also scampered about her grandfather's fruit orchard outside Tehran, climbing trees, picking berries and dipping her fingers in an icy stream. And she wandered the ancient city of Esfahan, for several centuries the capital of Persia. It was dusk when her family strolled under the illuminated archways of the Sio-Seh Pol Bridge, admiring the mosques and other architectural landmarks stretched out before them. For Asal, Esfahan was a little like Rome -- a tribute to a proud heritage. Also a tribute to a lost world.

No going back

The atmosphere of political uncertainty in Iran, where the current government could well tighten already rigid restrictions on dress and free expression, has proven less than enticing to U.S.-raised Persian women like Asal. She says she has no interest in going back to Iran, not right now anyway.

Growing up in the shadow of exile, Asal is one of as many as 600,000 residents of Persian descent in southern California -- most are refugees of the 1979 Iranian revolution and their children. An estimated one million Iranians now live in the United States, with the largest population residing in Los Angeles. By reputation, Iranians in the United States have proven wildly successful -- as profitable in Beverly Hills real estate as they are proficient in medical school admission. They have struck gold as entrepreneurs as well, operating grocery store chains and restaurants (an estimated 60 in L.A. and Orange counties). They have kept their culture alive in the diaspora through bookstores, newspapers, radio stations, websites and Farsi-language TV satellite stations that broadcast anti-government messages to Iran. It's no wonder, then, that Los Angeles has been nicknamed Irangeles.

Still, many Iranian expatriates openly pine for a return to the country of their birth. Asal's parents fall into this category, and lately, they have been talking about retiring in Iran. The subject came up -- again -- at a recent family reunion with Asal's aunts, uncles and cousins of her parents' generation.

"It's a perennial discussion that goes in stages. They reminisce, argue, reason with each other, convince each other and at the end they're telling funny stories about when they were little. It makes them feel like they're still Iranians," she says. In fact, one of Asal's relatives moved back to Iran and is happy there, but Asal questions whether her parents would thrive. Her father left at 15 and her mother at 18.

"Some people in my family are telling them you can't go back. They keep telling them it's not the Iran of the '60s," Asal notes.