Adam Harkham: Man of Two Cultures

“We have more than one culture in our household, which is just really special to me. It affects me because we speak Farsi in my house sometimes, it impacts our culture and our traditions, and we have a lot of Persian food. When speaking, people might’ve taken a glance, but no one told me or my family to stop, to my knowledge. It helped me get closer to my mom’s side because in public we could speak Farsi without anybody understanding. When I speak farsi, it never offends people, I don’t speak bad about people, only things that strangers don’t need to hear. I also feel closer to my mom’s side because speaking a different language feels special and different compared to just speaking English the whole time. My grandparents didn’t like living in Iran because of the lack of freedom. With my mom’s parents, I speak to them in a different language. It makes me feel more important than other people in my life, like we have some sort of special or different connection than others.”