Woman Escapes from Iran to a Life of Gratitude in Los Angeles County
Pam Vetter
October 08, 2008
Ladan was born and raised in Tehran, Iran, with three siblings. "My childhood was great. I was the second born child. I had an older sister, a brother and a sister 10 years younger than me. We lived at home with my parents," Ladan said. "But, everything changed with the revolution in 1979."
She was 18-years-old when the revolution affected Iranian residents. "It was awful. People were afraid to come out of their homes. They were killing people in the street. At one point, the government brought in helicopters and shot and killed 20,000 demonstrators in the street," Ladan explained. "There was no freedom of speech in Iran and you never knew who was listening. My cousin, who was in his 30's and had just been married, owned a printing shop. When he was caught printing flyers, he disappeared. We spent more than two months looking for him. We found out he had been arrested. Two years later, they shot and killed him with 400 other people."
The death of her cousin brought action from her father. "My dad said, 'We're going to sell everything and leave.' I had graduated from high school, but the government closed the university. So, I couldn't continue my education. The curfew for everyone was 8 pm every night. Life at home was like jail. I couldn't work and I got very sick from the pressure of everything. I had blisters all over my body and the doctor told my parents I was depressed and was having psychological problems. My older sister was already living in Egypt and my brother was studying in England. My little sister was still at home. My parents had visas and passports to travel, but I did not. The country would not allow young people to leave. They wanted to know why we were leaving. Our lives had changed dramatically. They said on the radio that everything was not allowed. There had to be a separation of boys and girls. You weren't allowed to have playing cards, backgammon or chess games in our homes or they would arrest you. You weren't allowed to have videos or books. I loved to read. I remember when my father emptied my library shelf of history books and put them in a black trashcan. He threw the books away. I was crying. But, they were searching the houses. They encouraged neighbors to turn on each other as they put neighbor against neighbor."
By 1981, Ladan's father found a man he could trust to help his family escape by land through Pakistan or Turkey.
"I couldn't go alone, so my mother and little sister came with me. We sold everything and paid $300,000 for us to escape. It was $100,000 per person. It was a big operation with at least 30 guys involved. My father flew out to Spain, where we were supposed to meet my brother. Refugees went to Spain or Turkey at that time. We were fortunate that it was just the three of us traveling together in a small group. Other people traveled in larger groups, walking for many miles through the desert or they'd ride donkeys toward Turkey. If they were caught, they were shot and killed," Ladan remembered. "A one-armed man made us fake passports and got us airline tickets. We flew from Tehran to a border city, Zahedon, near the Pakistan border. We spent the night in a motel. From there, another man took us to his house. His family was there. He told us it would take five days to escape. He took our passports, our identifications, our gold jewelry, everything. We just went with the clothes on our backs. That's it."
The path to freedom was not easy. Three women traveling together, they always felt like targets.
"We were worried what would happen the whole time. We were worried about being raped, attacked or killed. We were scared. People were dying for trying to escape and that was the reality," Ladan stressed. "Another man told us to board an 18-wheeler. We had no idea where we were going. We drove for 18 hours and the next day we arrived at 6 pm. We were in the middle of the mountains. There was a huge camp of people who were living in tents in the middle of nowhere. They cooked for us and it was the best meal we had in two days. We didn't understand their language because there were several different languages in Iran. I remember there was a nice river nearby and they used it for drinking water and cooking. But, I didn't want to go to the bathroom because they told me to watch for snakes and scorpions. The next night, we left with a different driver in another 18-wheeler. It was freezing and we had blankets wrapped around us. We drove through the night. In the middle of nowhere, he stopped and we changed to a small pickup truck. We sat next to the driver while he drove in the darkness of the night on a dirt road. He didn't use his headlights for fear we'd be found. Finally, he told us, 'You're in Pakistan now. You're lucky. God must have loved you because people were shot here last night trying to escape.' I started crying because I loved Iran and I didn't want to leave."
Ladan was taken with her mother and younger sister to a room, where they slept for two hours. When they had to leave again, they were given their passports and driven to the city of Karachi.
"In Pakistan, on the way to Karachi, they were trying to mug us. The driver had to make deals with them. There were also private military soldiers sitting along the road with guns. It was frightening. A man rented a room in a hotel for us in Karachi. That night was the scariest. I remember there was a big shower in the bathroom and we all went in to wash. We were so filthy, black water was washing off our bodies, even though we had our hair covered and we were covered. It had been five days since our escape began. Inside the motel, there was another operation from Pakiston's people for Iranian to charge them and make them fake passports or Visas. The men tried to get more money from us. My mother paid them a little more. It took 10 days to get our passport fixed. This hotel was three stories high with 40-50 rooms. All these Iranian young people age 18-30 were running around the hotel. We were all escapees. These men were making a ton of money on escapees. Two kids 18 and 19 begged my mom to take them with us. She agreed. When we went to the airport, the men there wanted more money. In Pakistan, they were so poor. Finally, all five of us flew from Karachi to Madrid, Spain. The two kids thanked my mom for saving their lives. Meanwhile, my father was going crazy because had no phone contact for seven days. He had no idea what had happened, whether we were alive or dead. My dad rented an apartment. I lived there for four months and then moved with my sister in Egypt. My brother left the University. Instead, he worked by selling cigarettes in the subway. My parents lived in Madrid for a year and a half."
Ladan's parents, brother and sister gained political asylum in the United States and moved to the Valley in 1983.
"My parents applied for refugee when I was 20. I moved to the United States in 1984. After my sister's husband died in Egypt in an accident, she joined us six months later. My dad rented an apartment in North Hollywood. My dad was a gas inspector in Iran, but he had to go back to school to be retrained. He learned how to be a welder as a new trade. He became a taxi driver. In 1987, my older sister died at the age of 27 from breast cancer. She was diagnosed with cancer just after she moved to the United States. It was hard on everyone. Life was hard. We all had to start over," Ladan said. "My dad lost everything he had in Iran. He had his own business, his own office. He took early retirement. My parents are both 74-years-old now and they still live in the Valley. I met my husband back in Egypt. He followed me to the United States in 1987 and we have two sons. My younger sister has a family in Woodland Hills and my brother also lives with his family in Woodland Hills. I have cousins living in Canada, Washington D.C. and Texas. There are more than a million Iranians living in the Los Angeles area, many who escaped Iran with greater difficult than me. If you look at the taxi drivers at Burbank Airport today, many of them are Iranian. They were formerly in the military or they worked as doctors or engineers in Iran. They escaped during the revolution, but their education and titles didnīt transfer into the United States. They had to go through University and testing again in English. It's so difficult to start over. Some of the former Iranian doctors now work as assistants in American doctors' offices. They left so much behind."
"I feel my kids are lucky to live in this great country. We live a normal American life. My youngest son plays AYSO soccer and is now in high school. My oldest son is attending University. We have a good life," Ladan explained. "My parents have been back to Iran to visit a few times. Last year, I took my youngest son with me to visit Iran. It's okay to visit, but not to live there. You have to be smart when you visit. You don't do anything with the government and you cover your hair. We traveled everywhere by plane, train and bus and my son got to see everything."
Looking back, Ladan is simply filled with gratitude.
"We were scared of the unknown during the escape, but all of those people who took us in were so honest and good to us. They returned our passports, identifications and gold jewelry. They risked their lives to help us escape safely. I remember thanking this one man at the end of our journey in Karachi, because he stayed with us. My mother asked him to stay with us because we didn't know the language. He said, 'I'll do that with honor.' He took us sight seeing, to the beach and we even went shopping. We were so grateful. When we went back last year, I thanked God I left. Society is a mess because of the regime. All of my friends are divorced. My uncle and his wife were in jail for a year when they found a gun in his house. His family had to pay a few thousand dollars to get them out of jail. It's not an easy life," Ladan added, "To me, family is everything and I am thankful every day."
Pictured: Ladan after her 1981 escape from Iran.
All rights reserved. No portion of this text may be reproduced in any way whatsoever without the prior express written consent of the author. This article is copyrighted material. If you wish to use copyrighted material for the purposes of 'fair use' for research and educational purposes, you must cite the columnist's name and the source as American Chronicle. Permission to reproduce article in full will be granted for research and educational purposes, but it must include all copyrights and credits with the information reproduced.