Finding Resilience in Immigration

Kristin Maxwell:

Hello, everyone. Welcome to Your SuperPowered Mind. I am your host, Kristin Maxwell. And in this show, we explore the process of transformation and give you tools and strategies that you can use to transform your own life. Today, I am very excited to be talking to Mehran Sorourian about the challenges surrounding immigration, or in other words, the challenges of adapting to a new culture, when you feel like you are on the outside. And I am really excited to be exploring with her, both her own story and how she rose to the challenges, and also how she helps other people. What are some of the shifts and mindsets and beliefs that help anybody, whether they’re immigrants, or just feel on the outside to survive and thrive?

So let me give you a little bit of her background. At age 19, Mehran immigrated to the United States where she faced a number of challenges, including cultural differences, language barriers, financial challenges, lack of supportive family, and just acceptance, generally. Despite these challenges, Mehran was able to thrive, achieving a master’s degree in science and obtaining an incredibly successful job in biotech, but she still faced challenges around communication. Mehran eventually left her corporate job and went back to school and then founded a business to support cultural awareness and other immigrants in their adaptation to the United States and new situations. Mehran, welcome to Your SuperPowered Mind.

And it was normal. It was normal. I don’t want to say this in a negative way. It was just, right now, the things that they said would’ve been kind of aggression, it would be considered as aggression, but really, they cared for me as the woman in the family. In our culture, back in Iran, if they didn’t do so, women would think that “Their father didn’t care about them,” or, “Their brothers didn’t care about them.” So it was somewhat synonymous to love and care, this controlling behavior.

And I remember, it’s funny, when I was growing up, I was always wearing these loose-fitting clothes because my brothers weren’t comfortable with what I wore. And I remember that one day, one of them noticed that my breasts were growing a little bit and he goes like, “Why are you having your chest up? Just hunch over a little bit. And kind of fold your shoulders inward so that your… doesn’t show.” Right? And for a very long time, I struggled with that posture, right? And being feminine, and showing what was normal, right? So going back to the story, this is my young adulthood. I got married really young. Again, the choice was made by my family, by my father, and by my brothers. And I don’t call it arranged marriage, but in many ways, it was. And I call it a convincing marriage to kind of please them and my husband because it hurts his feelings to call it arranged, but in many ways, it was.

I was upset about this, and we talked for a very long time for me to agree to marry my current husband, who… We have been together for 24 years, so now it’s a choice, right? But yeah, in our culture, again, once you say yes, then you stay married for a very long time. So that yes that I said, meant that I would be with my husband for the rest of my life. He decided to come to the States. I didn’t want to come to the States. Again, another decision that was not made by me. And life was like that. We came, we had, as you mentioned, a lot of financial difficulties, we had $3,000 in our pockets and four suitcases, and that was it.

We migrated right after 9/11. And that has a story of itself. I got our Visa before 9/11, but my husband was supposed to get his one on 9/11. And we don’t have an embassy in Iran, so he had to go to Dubai. And when he arrived, he heard the news and he saw it on the news. So for a very long time… not very long time, what seemed to be a very long time, everyone was like, “Mehran, you need to go. You need to go without your husband, and he’s going to join you.” And I was like, “I don’t even want to go.” Right? I don’t want to leave my family, I don’t want to go, but we came anyway, right?

We both went to school. We went through so much to be where we are at. Anywhere, any decision that we made around schooling, where to go, and carriers, I always automatically put my husband first. And he decided which schools we go to, where to go for work and all of that. I don’t want to say that all of it was an aware decision, a lot of it was unaware. I followed, I didn’t say much. That’s why I said in the beginning, I don’t know if the choice was more important, or to be speaking up about it was more important. So through time, education, being around different-minded people, the community, school counselors, and so much more, I learned about not only my choices but how to decide and exercise them.

And in so many ways, I have to say this, I’m very grateful for having gone through the migration process because it taught me so much. It taught me so much about my ability and about my resilience, and how to persevere, right? And have grit in achieving what I want to achieve. And it took me a very long time to be able to speak up and say, “Okay, here is my boundary. Here’s what I do like to do. Here’s what I don’t like to do.” And I don’t feel that I still master that completely, because it feels like peeling an onion, right? Every layer I peel, I find something else, and I… And because it’s cultural, right? It takes time, it takes a lot of energy, and there’s a lot of tears because it’s a part of you.

And when you’re an immigrant, you want to keep that culture as much as possible, because that gives you that sense of belonging. So it has been difficult. It has been difficult to disentangle from the parts of it that didn’t serve me, but in many ways, I feel very grateful to have gone through that journey and to be where I am and to do what I do. I mean, this makes me super happy and gives me pure joy every day that I wake up and see what I can do, what I’m capable of, and the decisions that I make. So yeah.

Kristin Maxwell:

Wow. That’s quite a moving story. And it is such an interesting thing, that different cultural perspective. Because it never occurred to me that I didn’t have a choice and the power, and my parents were very forward-thinking. I went on and became an attorney. And I think it wasn’t until my mid-20s when being a lawyer, when I finally discovered that men wouldn’t necessarily listen to me and that I had to really push it, and then be extra firm and strong until I got their respect, which is such a different perspective. Okay. Well, we are going to have to take a break, but before we get to go more into it. I would love to talk more about decisions, I want to talk more about what the challenges of immigration are. Well, talk about what you mentioned, the changing and evolving while still not wanting to let go of your other culture. And I forgot to mention that you have a podcast. So can you let people know where your podcast is and where they can find you?

Mehran Sorourian:

Sure. They could go to my site, it’s www.mehrans.com and my podcast is there. But the name of my podcast, I always tell people, I joke about it, I say, “I’m not the greatest when it comes to naming.” So it’s Empowering conversation, with the Z at the end. But they can find it almost anywhere, including my website.

Kristin Maxwell:

Okay. And Mehran, spell the name of your website www.mehrans.com?

Mehran Sorourian:

Correct. Mehran. Correct.

Kristin Maxwell:

Perfect. I always listen while I’m driving, so I need to see that right there. Okay. Hang on, people. We will be right back and we will dig some more into these interesting topics around immigration and learning the power of making your own decisions.

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