I guess I shouldn't be, but I'm always amazed when immigrants who came to the United States from oppressed nations seem to enjoy and appreciate our freedoms more than many of those who were born and raised here do.
Even old Nicolás Maduro was allegedly shocked at how many rights he had as a prisoner when he appeared in a federal courtroom earlier this month.
One such person who exemplifies this is Dorsa Derakhshani, a 27-year-old chess star who was born in Tehran, Iran.
Derakhshani has always been advanced for her age. She could read before she was two years old. By the age of four, she was performing at a fourth grade level, but because there weren't many educational opportunities for girls in her home country, she was forced to start school at first grade like everyone else, which she found terribly boring. Her parents tried to find other activities to enrich her life, like ballet, painting, music, swimming... and chess. That was the winner.
She was just eight years old when she entered her first chess tournament, a national championship in Iran, and won. According to Saint Louis University, "She accepted her award in a princess gown and tiara, sweetly standing out among the other girls wearing traditional headscarves."
She started winning and went on to score straight gold medals at the 2012, 2013 and 2014 Asian Youth Championships. In the numerical chess ratings, she was at the top for all girls in Asia and second-highest for girls under 18 in the world, 2015 through 2017.
Soon, Derakhshani had achieved every possible women’s chess title, including grandmaster in 2016. But it wasn’t without struggle. The restrictive culture of her home country hindered her, again and again.
Her sex became a problem. "In Iran, women are seen as second-class citizens, so they weren’t allowed to play in open tournaments. And there weren’t enough women chess players to organize a big event," she told the university. On top of that, she'd run into issues with the Iranian dress code. Officials would claim her clothes were too tight or revealing or that she needed to cover her head.
She eventually decided that was not the life for her. "The culture wasn’t for me — such strict gender roles and the whole idea that I couldn’t speak up for anything, ever. It was oppressive," she said.
She began playing chess in European leagues, leaving Iran in the rearview mirror. Even so, her home country made it clear she wasn't welcome back by banning her from playing chess permanently because she refused to wear a hijab.
She began looking for academic opportunities elsewhere, but she wanted a school that would also allow her to continue to pursue chess at the same level. That's how she landed at Saint Louis University. Several schools in the United States had officered her scholarships, but Saint Louis is considered a "chess hub." She decided to attend and play for the U.S. Chess Federation.
By the summer of 2017, she had moved to St. Louis, and she began attending classes in the fall. Her father was a pediatrician and her mother was a psychiatrist — though her mother had trouble finding work in Iran — and she wanted to follow in their footsteps and become a doctor.
Iranian chess player Dorsa Derakhshani was given an ultimatum by the Islamic regime of Iran: either wear Hijab or you won’t be allowed to compete.
— Azat (@AzatAlsalim) October 10, 2024
she refused to wear the Hijab, she joined the USA team and became a world champion. pic.twitter.com/oBvRBtfqLG
In 2022, Derakhshani finished her degree in biology and health sciences, and she's currently in medical school at the University of Missouri. While her family still lives in Iran, she's a U.S. citizen now, and while she's not playing chess or studying to become a doctor, she's become a passionate proponent of free speech.
"[W]ith the current Iranian government, I never felt that sense of belonging, that sense of pride, because they weren't interested in improving. They weren't interested in feedback. They weren't interested in what's best for people," she told Fresh Air last summer.
She continued:
In the U.S., that's at least an option — just because you say something that somebody doesn't like, they won't just take your head, in a sense, so you can give feedback, criticize and use your First Amendment rights. That's something that's really valuable to me. I can't even explain how much that gives me a sense of relief — to belong to a country [where] I can speak my mind and I can express myself the way that I am.
She said that also extends to the chess world, where, even in the U.S., she feels like she sometimes experiences sexism or misogyny.
The chess culture is much better in the U.S. because you have an opportunity to talk about it. When you start talking about it, the problems are shared, and people are more aware of it — and that's something that you can at least start addressing. Whereas somewhere, let's say, in Iran, even if you talk about it, you're immediately shut down because, ‘Oh, you don't like it? Get out.’ It's more of that style. So that's why I'm proud to be a U.S. citizen now, because that is freedom of expression and freedom of speech. If you don't talk about it, nothing changes.
