The Weight of Two Worlds: What Migrants Bring and What the World Needs
By Pej Vosooghi
I was 10 years old when I left Iran in 1985. The revolution of 1979 had turned the country upside down, and the war that followed brought devastation to my doorstep. Air raid sirens, the sound of bombs, and the constant uncertainty of survival were the backdrop of my childhood. My parents, like many others, made the difficult decision to leave everything behind and start over in the United States—a choice that meant safety but also profound loss. Arriving in America felt like stepping into a completely different reality. I had escaped the chaos of war, but now I faced a different kind of challenge: learning how to belong in a culture that felt foreign and, in some ways, indifferent. My classmates worried about things I couldn’t relate to—what to wear, what to watch on TV. For me, life had always been about survival, not trivial choices.
At first, I thought I was the one who had to adapt completely, to mold myself into this new world. And I did—I learned the language, excelled in school, and built a life filled with success. But as I grew older, I started to see the limitations of the world around me. It wasn’t just cultural differences or the pain of being misunderstood. It was something deeper: a lack of self-reflection in the people and systems I encountered. The Missing Depth in Today’s Society.
The U.S. has always prided itself on being a melting pot, a place where people from all over the world can contribute to a collective culture. And yet, the way the country approaches education, community, and even mental health often lacks the depth required to truly understand those contributions.
Take education, for example. Schools here teach basic facts about history and culture, but they rarely go beyond surface-level lessons. Students might learn that Persia, now Iran, was the birthplace of one of the world’s greatest empires, but they don’t learn about the profound contributions that Iranian culture has made to humanity. They don’t learn that Iranians developed some of the first systems of governance, pioneered fields like mathematics and medicine, and contributed timeless works of art and literature.
Iranian history is a testament to cultural intelligence—an ability to think critically, innovate, and adapt that has been passed down through generations. These are the qualities migrants bring with them, often unrecognized and undervalued.
The Problem of Shallow Thinking
What frustrates me most is the lack of self-reflection I encounter in so many people. Growing up in the U.S., many people are insulated from the complexities of the world. Their understanding of life is shaped by stability and security, things I could never take for granted. Too often, I’ve seen people rely on quick judgments and labels, reducing the complexity of a person’s identity to something that needs to be “fixed” or dismissed.