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Chapter Three

Summary: Chapter Three: Sporting the Frida Kahlo

Gideon Wright, Sara’s first high school crush, snickers as he teases her about having only one eyebrow. Sara looks in the mirror and, for the first time, notices the black hair between her two brows. Sara desperately wants those hairs gone. But, following Iranian custom, her mom refuses to let Sara pluck her eyebrows until she turns fifteen.

Sara plays it cool with Gideon and displays her unibrow with forced pride, but she becomes acutely aware of her physical imperfections. Iranians care about outward appearances, Sara explains, which is why her bedroom looks so trendy. However, Sara knows she is too short and has a boring wardrobe. Her ears stick out, her hair is too frizzy, and she wears braces. She feels as if she’s letting her mom down—Mama Saedi is known for her good looks.

Samira talks their mother into letting Sara pluck her eyebrows, but Gideon Wright’s comment permanently damages Sara’s self-esteem. Sara worries that her being Middle Eastern turns off boys. In her diary entry for February 8, 1995, Sara calls herself ugly. She doesn’t want to change just so guys will like her, but she feels like a loser.

Analysis: Chapter Three

In this chapter, Saedi explores the relationship between beauty and Iranian identity as a part of Sara’s adolescent physical, social, and emotional development. While self-consciousness about changing bodies is a typical hallmark of teenage life, for Sara, these insecurities are intensified by her sense of being an outsider to both American and Persian culture. Saedi emphasizes the conflicting ways her skin tone and body hair are commented on by her Iranian relatives and her American peers. Sara’s relatives praise her skin tone and body hair for being lighter than the Iranian norm, implying they are desirable American traits. In contrast, when Gideon points out her unibrow, Sara experiences this as a comment on her ethnicity, realizing for the first time that her body hair marks her as distinctly Middle Eastern among her American peers. Simultaneously, although Iranian culture encourages body hair removal, Sara is not yet allowed to participate in this rite of passage. In this way, Sara is caught between identities, neither properly Persian nor typically American.

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