I grew up very poor. Dinner was toast with some cheese. At 12, I went to a then-friend’s fancy house.
Her mom set up a nice table with hot meals. As I was cutting my meat, her mom freaked out. She looked at me and shouted, “Are you using a KNIFE like that?
What kind of home are you from?”
I froze. The room got quiet in that sharp, stinging way where even the walls seem to listen. The knife trembled a bit in my hand.
I had no idea what I’d done wrong. I thought I was just eating. I remember her daughter—Shayla—smirking a little, like this was her entertainment.
Her mom grabbed my plate, took the utensils from me, and said, “Let me show you how normal people eat.”
I nodded, cheeks burning. But something in me shifted. It wasn’t just embarrassment—it was this raw shame I didn’t know I was carrying until that moment.
I hadn’t known we were “less than.” Not really. Not until I got compared to “normal.”
I didn’t go back to Shayla’s house after that. When I got home, I told my mom what happened.
She stayed quiet for a while, just sat at the sink peeling potatoes. Then she said, “Don’t worry. One day, you’ll sit at your own table.
And you’ll know how to treat people.”
I didn’t understand it then. But now, years later, that moment rewired something in me. Back then, we lived in a one-bedroom apartment above a laundromat in Glendale.
My mom cleaned houses and waitressed on weekends. My older brother, Ishan, worked part-time at the gas station to help pay bills. I was the kid who always had to decline field trips.
No birthday parties. No new shoes—just the ones we patched up with glue. But I had books.
Old ones from library sales. And that became my escape. At 15, I got my first job at a small Persian bakery, sweeping floors and boxing sweets.
It wasn’t glamorous, but I liked the quiet rhythm of it. The owner, Auntie Parvaneh, would sneak me baklava at the end of the shift. She once said, “Kind hands make the best sweets,” and winked.
She never cared how I held a fork. High school was rough in the usual way—kids sniffing out poverty like bloodhounds. I never had the right clothes, and someone always made sure to remind me.
But I kept my head down and studied. I didn’t know what I was chasing exactly—just that I wanted out. By 17, I graduated early.
Full scholarship to a state university. I left home with $43, two suitcases, and my mom’s rice cooker. College was its own world.
Everyone seemed to come from somewhere with more—more money, more connections, more polish. I had to learn everything from scratch: how to network, how to write a résumé, how to eat at networking dinners without looking out of place. That knife moment haunted me, oddly enough.
I took a free etiquette class the university offered, just to get it out of my head. Not because I believed in forks and knives being status symbols. But because I never wanted to feel that powerless again.
I interned every summer. Said yes to everything. I didn’t drink or party.
I worked. I had this fire that wouldn’t let me sit still. I was determined to build a life my mom could be proud of.
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