Persepolis part 2

As I was reading Persepolis part two, I was able to make numerous connections with my experiences in America at the age of 13, the age she left for Austria also. Moreover, her personality was similar to mine on how she was very rebellious and seeks for freedom. I remember in the middle of the story when she was only a teenager, there was a part where she first smoked a cigarette that she stole from his uncle in the basement as being rebellious to her mother and I found myself having the same reason for the start.
During her periods in Austria, I was able to see myself in her. I was having a lot of feelings crossing in my mind because as a way of assimilation, she became a smoker and a dealer. I wasn’t as decadent as she was, but I was actually chasing after what others(especially from my country) could call decadence. I was peer-pressured a lot in order for me to learn and survive in this country. Instead of studying like her about Austrian country, I learned via television and other media. However, I was not strong enough to break through and become assimilated in America; therefore, I decided to stick with my ethnic group and agree to live in a minority group which society has formed. I feel like moving selves are usually choose to stay in the dark side of the society. Therefore, there are many gangs and criminals from the minority groups due to unfair opportunities, language barriers and most importantly colors just like Davis has chosen to exemplify in her article about races of color being stereotyped and experience racism from the society;therefore rate of criminals go up and prison company prospers. I think because of the society people of color choose to be in the dark side and become more and more like what the stereotypes pushes them to be like to retain the societal structures. Even when she went back to Iran to be with family and friends, things weren’t as expected; she was still feeling lonely and had nowhere to stand. Even though Iran was her mother country, it wasn't very motherly to her because perspectives that she had in her adolescent periods had now changed. She was having a depression and even the psychologists couldn’t help because he did not understand her being such a moving self. Moving selves are usually hard to fit in because usually small groups of people have dual experiences; and it is very hard to find those people around. I had many stages of depressions also in the teenage when I came to America and during my college years. Although I met people from my mother country, they were different from me because most of them just came from their country and gave me difficulties in learning their cultures also(How ironic is that? now I say their cultures instead of our cultures).
On the contrary, we had a few differences also. My parents were very strict and they would put a lot of restrictions and did not like much how I was rebellious, however, her parents helped her seek freedom and be rebellious. Maybe it is because of the different time periods and environments we lived in where she had to live under a fundamental government and environment and I am from and am living in democratic environments. My parents were afraid that I might become too open and become decadent where minimum restrictions are placed in contrast to her country, Iran. Another, as Marjane became dependent on men, I felt distant from her because I believed that women’s dependency on men was a patriarchal ideas. I strongly agree with the idea that women need to gain economic and emotional independence in order to be completely independent from the patriarchy system before they insist and seek to be independent. I was happy with the ending of the book when she decides to leave Iran for independence and freedom from men, country, and many other factors that were restraining her from gaining freedom.