The Rocket

Issue date: 1/25/08 Section: Focus

Media Credit: Submitted Photo Parisa Montazaran, a castmate from the most recent season of the MTV reality series "The Real World," will be visiting SRU on Jan. 31. [Click to enlarge]

Many castmates of MTV's "The Real World" have visited SRU, but few have come to the university with a positive message to help bring students together.

On Jan. 31, Parisa Montazaran from "The Real World: Sydney," will be visiting campus to give a lecture about her experiences with cultural diversity. After the lecture, Parisa will also take part in a meet-and-greet where she will take photos and talk with students.

Parisa, a 21-year-old native of New York City, is a Muslim Iranian-American who graduated from New York University right before she left for "The Real World" filming.

During the season of "The Real World," there were several instances in which Parisa faced hardship due to her ethnicity and culture.

"I used to hostess. After 9/11, at work a lot of the waiters ganged up on me and were throwing dishes at me and screaming at me in front of customers," Parisa said in the season's first episode. "My background is definitely something that makes me different from the other roommates."

Also in the first episode of the season, Parisa's roommate, Trisha Cummings,19, made fun of a foreign employee who spoke poor English in a fast-food restaurant.

Parisa, whose parents have heavy accents, was deeply offended by her roommate's words and immediately stood up for the restaurant worker and her parents.

"All Muslims are really different. It's still alarming that people base American identity on whiteness," Parisa also said in the episode.

Krystina Herman, 20, a sophomore dual secondary education and special education major at SRU, agreed with Parisa.

"When that happened, I thought it was really ignorant of Trisha to say something like that," Herman said.

Herman also said she was glad that Parisa stood up for her fellow minorities.

"I'm glad she said something because it was offensive, especially since her parents have such heavy accents themselves. If I were her, I'd feel the same way," Herman said.

Continued...

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