Esther Amini grew up in Queens, New York, during the freewheeling 1960s. She also grew up in a Persian-Jewish household, the American-born daughter of parents who had fled Mashhad, Iran. In Concealed, she tells the story of being caught between these two worlds: the dutiful daughter of tradition-bound parents who hungers for more self-determination than tradition allows.
Exploring the roots of her father's deep silences and explosive temper, her mother's flamboyance and flights from home, and her own sense of indebtedness to her Iranian-born brothers, Amini uncovers the story of her parents' early years in Mashhad, Iran's holiest Muslim city; the little-known history of Mashhad's underground Jews; the incident that steeled her mother's resolve to leave; and her parents' arduous journey to the U.S., where they faced a new threat to their traditions: the threat of freedom. Determined to protect his daughter from corruption, Amini's father prohibits talk, books, education, and pushes early marriage. Can she resist? Should she? Focused on what she stands to gain, Amini comes to see what she also stands to lose: a family bound together by food, celebrations, sibling escapades, and unexpected acts of devotion.
In this poignant, funny, entertaining, uplifting memoir, Amini documents how family members build, buoy, wound, and save one another across generations; how lives are shaped by the burdens of loyalty and legacy; and how she rose to the challenge of deciding what to keep and what to discard.
