Chapters 1 through 3 Summary and Analysis

Chapter 1: Leffingwell Elementary School

When Firoozeh Dumas was seven years old, she moved from Abadan, Iran, to Whittier, California with her parents and fourteen-year-old brother, Farshid. Firoozeh's father, Kazem, had fallen in love with the kindness, freedom, and potential that America offered years before when he attended graduate school in Texas and California, where he earned advanced degrees in engineering. The move to California was to be temporary as Kazem, an engineer with the National Iranian Oil Company, was taking on a two year project as a consultant for an American firm.

Firoozeh met with her teacher, Mrs. Sandberg, prior to beginning second grade at Leffingwell Elementary School. Accompanied by her father who spoke English and her mother who did not, Firoozeh displayed the only English she knew by reciting her colors. On the first few days of school...