Little Pomegranate Tree
04/02/23 • 45 min
Adel escaped religious persecution in Iran as a teenager. He talks with his wife Maxine and daughter Carmel about language, whakapapa, plane rides, and the privilege of putting art first.
Content warning: This episode contains offensive language, themes of escape, sacrifice, loss of language, and navigating multiple identities.
Watch the video version of the episode here
Adel escaped religious persecution in Iran as a teenager. He talks with his wife Maxine and daughter Carmel about language, whakapapa, plane rides, and the privilege of putting art first.
Adel, his wife Maxine, and their eldest, Carmel, lead the first episode of this final series of Conversations with My Immigrant Parents. Maxine is Samoan, Chinese, and Māori; Adel is Iranian, and came to Aotearoa with his brother when he was 16, after spending a year and a half in a refugee camp in Pakistan. Maxine and Adel live in Tūranganui-a-Kiwa with Carmel, who is 20, and their youngest, Haami, who was 16 at the time of recording.
In the conversation, Carmel talks about preparing to live away from her parents for the first time, leaving Tūranganui-a-Kiwa to head back to Tāmaki Makaurau, where her family lived for many years, to study fine arts and language at the University of Auckland.
"I feel I've only really discovered the art world in the past year because I've started to work with people and spend time with people who are involved with that, but my idea of being an artist was always you," Carmel tells her dad.
Adel made art for many years, alongside his other work and study. He describes having to make a choice in order to provide for his family: "I didn't give up everything, but I did give up art or a life in art for financial security." However, he is mindful that he did this specifically so that his children would not have to be in the same position, and would be able to choose a career in the arts if they wanted.
Maxine and Adel met through their shared Baháʼí faith, and wrote one another love letters for a long time before they met and wed. After they married, they lived in West Auckland and raised their family there before making the decision to return to a place that might provide a new kind of home - to Te Tairāwhiti, where Maxine has whakapapa connections...
Adel escaped religious persecution in Iran as a teenager. He talks with his wife Maxine and daughter Carmel about language, whakapapa, plane rides, and the privilege of putting art first.
Content warning: This episode contains offensive language, themes of escape, sacrifice, loss of language, and navigating multiple identities.
Watch the video version of the episode here
Adel escaped religious persecution in Iran as a teenager. He talks with his wife Maxine and daughter Carmel about language, whakapapa, plane rides, and the privilege of putting art first.
Adel, his wife Maxine, and their eldest, Carmel, lead the first episode of this final series of Conversations with My Immigrant Parents. Maxine is Samoan, Chinese, and Māori; Adel is Iranian, and came to Aotearoa with his brother when he was 16, after spending a year and a half in a refugee camp in Pakistan. Maxine and Adel live in Tūranganui-a-Kiwa with Carmel, who is 20, and their youngest, Haami, who was 16 at the time of recording.
In the conversation, Carmel talks about preparing to live away from her parents for the first time, leaving Tūranganui-a-Kiwa to head back to Tāmaki Makaurau, where her family lived for many years, to study fine arts and language at the University of Auckland.
"I feel I've only really discovered the art world in the past year because I've started to work with people and spend time with people who are involved with that, but my idea of being an artist was always you," Carmel tells her dad.
Adel made art for many years, alongside his other work and study. He describes having to make a choice in order to provide for his family: "I didn't give up everything, but I did give up art or a life in art for financial security." However, he is mindful that he did this specifically so that his children would not have to be in the same position, and would be able to choose a career in the arts if they wanted.
Maxine and Adel met through their shared Baháʼí faith, and wrote one another love letters for a long time before they met and wed. After they married, they lived in West Auckland and raised their family there before making the decision to return to a place that might provide a new kind of home - to Te Tairāwhiti, where Maxine has whakapapa connections...
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Season 3 Trailer
Immigrant whānau across Aotearoa have frank conversations covering love, ancestry, home, food, expectation, and acceptance.
NEW SERIES 3rd APRIL, 2023
Immigrant whānau across Aotearoa have frank conversations covering love, ancestry, home, food, expectation, and acceptance.
Series 3 | Trailer: Conversations With My Immigrant Parents - Series 3
Conversations with My Immigrant Parents is a podcast and video series hosted, produced, and directed by Saraid de Silva and Julie Zhu.
Saraid de Silva is a Sri Lankan/Pākehā actor and writer. Her work deals with contemporary feminism and the realities of being a first-generation South Asian New Zealander.
Born in China, Julie Zhu is a filmmaker, photographer, and storyteller focused on championing the stories and voices of marginalised identities.
| Twitter: @saraiddesilva & @juliezhuu | Instagram: @convoswithmy | Facebook: whereareyoufromreally |
Next Episode
Representation Matters
Palestine is where the heart is for father Sameer and his daughters Wajd and Shahd. The family discuss the difficulties returning home, sisterhood, and what they learnt from Shortland Street.
Content warning: This episode contains discussion of the white supremacist terror attack of March 15th, 2019.
Watch the video version of the episode here
Palestine is where the heart is for father Sameer and his daughters Wajd and Shahd. The family discuss the difficulties returning home, sisterhood, and what they learnt from Shortland Street.
Sisters Wajd and Shahd sit down with their father Sameer to talk about their pride in and longing for Palestine, the surprising way Shortland Street helped them understand their mother, and their hopes for the future.
Leaving Kuwait after the invasion was a decision that felt very clear for the family. Namely because, as Sameer says, "When an invasion happens in any country, everybody's affected."
Sameer, who is Palestinian, and his wife Amal, who is Palestinian and Indian, arrived in Aotearoa when their children were very young, and seven months before Wajd was born.
The siblings undertook the majority of their education in Pōneke, though Wajd moved away when she left high school to study in Ōtautahi. Her decision to undertake her study in another city had repercussions, especially for her older sister Shahd, who had to take on much more of a caregiver role for their mother Amal.
Shahd describes it in practical terms: "In terms of helping Mum and stuff like that, I also had to be a bit more independent, like, plan a bit more. I guess that's why I'm so obsessed with lists and what's happening in three hours, and what we are having for dinner..."
Amal was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis when Wajd and Shahd were still in their early teens. It took some time to be able to fully understand the implications of the diagnosis, and the impact it would have for them as a family in the long run, so Sameer and Amal held off on telling their children exactly what Amal's condition was.
In their conversation on the podcast, Wajd reflects on the moment things were clarified: "In Dubai, we were visiting Uncle Fady. What I remember her saying to him in the front seat was that she had multiple sclerosis, and I remember being so shocked because at the time there was a character on Shortland Street called Sarah, who had multiple sclerosis."...
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