If you are American born and raised then you may not comprehend what America is like through foreign eyes. "Room 22" is a story about a young man who comes to this country to study. He came to embrace the "American Dream" of education, success in business, and a basically good life where he will have food and shelter enough to raise the average sized family. In America, that is 2.5 children. Seems absurd to cut a child in half, doesn't it? So I'm going to use "3" as the average number of children in an American family. Where Yousef (translated as Joseph) came from, families had an average of five to seven children. This trend began to decline in the 1980's after the introduction a decade earlier of Iran's first fertility and family planning program. Marriage ages were reduced to age twelve for boys and age nine for girls. Compared to America, that is an extreme difference from our culture. Iran instituted these young marriage ages to increase their population due to the wars and mortality rates. Yousef desired a life far different than the future most of these young folks would face in their homeland.
Consider cultural differences the next time you think about a student attending school from a foreign land. It is especially different for countries with such opposite cultural, social, political and religious views. These are the areas that "Room 22" will explore in the context of the story.
The Midnight Writer
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