Source: Ventura County Star
http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2008/aug/10/putting-his-faith-in-education/
Sattar Khoshkhoo came to the United States from Iran four years ago, escaping a government that would not allow him to attend college because of his Baha'i faith.
His family had been living a comfortable life in Iran, his dad working as a dentist, his mom as a homemaker. But they realized that if their older child was going to get a college education, they had to leave.
"The Muslim majority does not recognize my religion as an official religion," Khoshkhoo said. "They can take away your rights, make it difficult to get jobs. I could not go to a university."
After spending nine months in Turkey waiting to be granted refugee status, Khoshkhoo and his family settled in Moorpark, where an uncle already lived. Two days after moving here, Khoshkhoo started classes at Moorpark High School, speaking only conversational English.
From the start, Khoshkhoo flourished in math and science classes, which rely more on numbers than language. Then, over the following summer, he took two English classes so he could keep up in English and history.
"I came here determined, focused on what I wanted to do," he said. Within a year, Khoshkhoo had joined the school's highly successful Academic Decathlon team, where students compete in speech, interviews, essays and multiple-choice tests. The experience, he said, helped him develop his language skills and learn American culture.
"Spending all that time with the team, I learned what they liked, what they did," he said. "It made me assimilate a lot easier."
Now, Khoshkhoo, 21, is a junior at UCLA, majoring in bioengineering and neuroscience, and this summer, he's one of 250 college students nationwide participating in the Amgen Scholars Program.