Baby #10

Those of you have been reading this know that I've been trying to get to Iran before my paternal uncle passes away and I can find out what happened to his sister (my grandmother). As you know, I was born on the day of the 1979 revolution when Khomeini landed in Iran, so the regime wasn't set up yet and I received birth identity papers that were from the Shah's time, stamped by the Iranian embassy in D.C. before they shut down. Because my identity papers are from the old regime (even though I was born in the new regime, technically), I can't get my Iranian passport renewed until I switch out my identity papers. I scanned my old identity booklet before mailing it to the Iranian government because it was such an interesting artifact. My mom was visiting earlier this week and we were looking at the scan and she noticed something...

On one of the middle pages, a stamp bears the symbol of the Islamic Republic! The booklet is from the Shah's regime, but the stamp inside is from the new regime... so maybe the papers were legit afterall! We got excited. Maybe I didn't have to wait many months!!

We called to find out if we were right. My mother explained to the man on the line that the booklet was stamped by the Islamic Republic and begged to allow the papers to be legit so I could renew my passport without waiting the several months it would take to destroy my current papers and re-create my paper identity. The man listened and empathized, but he said it was necessary to change the entire booklet. As long as the symbol of the Shah's regime--the "lion and sun"--were anywhere on the booklet, they had to switch it out... even if there was an Islamic Republic stamp inside.

I was born in a strange limbo time: the new regime wasn't set up yet (even though they had time to at least make a rubber stamp!) and the old regime was gone (even though they still used their stationary). My identity booklet was numbered "ten," the tenth Iranian baby born in the U.S. (?) on that fateful day between bureaucracies, the tenth baby who would be typing in English today.