These immigrant seniors are coming together to combat loneliness

It’s a balmy Tuesday morning in Rancho Palos Verdes, and people are slowly starting to trickle into a nondescript medical office building. They bring plates, removing the aluminium foil and plastic film to reveal banana bread drizzled with chocolate sauce and a pistachio crumb, plump nazook cookies, a cinnamon cake and bite-sized pieces of cantaloupe. Black tea is poured into glasses.

They greet each other with “Salam, chetori,” Farsi for “How are you?”

These seniors are here for a meeting of what they fondly call Tuesday Club at the South Bay Persian Heritage Foundation.

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Maloos Ferasat started the gathering just before the pandemic to help seniors in the South Bay Iranian community combat loneliness. When her mother was visiting from Iran, Ferasat observed how she was eager to go back home; family members here were busy with work and school, and she struggled to speak English, essentially leaving her stranded at home.

Roya Mehdipour brought kebab to share with the group.

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Yusra Farzan

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The gatherings, Ferasat said, help seniors feel seen, with about 75% of people saying they attend because they’re lonely.

The gathering starts with a poem and then it's time for movement. Shireen Madani leads the group in zurkhāneh rituals, an ancient Persian martial arts practice.

“ Everybody enjoys it, so that gives a lift to the people too, to get up and do exercise,” Madani said.

Then, she plays sounds of a bubbling stream as the group of about 20 stretch before finishing the routine in a dance as they twirl in a circle.

“ I think I have taken the most benefit of the class than anybody else. I think about it the night before so I don't mess up,” Madani said. “It helps me to have something to look forward to and enjoy.”

The exercise routine finishes with a dance.

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'Home after home'

At every gathering, Ferasat organizes a speaker to encourage discussion among the group. In the past, a psychologist came in and spoke about how childhood trauma can affect adult life, they learned about Khashan — a village in Iran known for its rosewater production — and home insurance.

Sometimes the group goes on an excursion. A recent one took them to the local public library, where they got library cards and learned how to check out books in Farsi.

“ This is a place that we can all come and feel like it's our home after home,” Ferasat said.

In Artesia, a similar concept

To the east in Artesia, the nonprofit South Asian Network convenes another group of seniors, this one mainly made up of people from the Indian subcontinent.

The group of seniors from the Indian subcontinent meet every Tuesday and Friday in Artesia.

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Yusra Farzan

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They usually meet at a local park to learn about a new topic. On a recent day, it was healthy eating habits, and after learning about different food groups, they engaged in a short exercise. On a mock up plate, they wrote how they would fill it. Some put down chapatti, a thin bread made of wheat flour, under carbohydrates; for others, dhal or lentils cooked in spices was the protein of choice.

 ”They all came together and they said that we need something to do on weekdays, basically, in the late mornings and early afternoon time,” said Ilesha Gupta, a community outreach organizer at South Asian Network who runs the group. ”We're isolated at home. We want to go out, we want to socialize.”

There are about 50 people in their 70s and 80s signed up for the gatherings, Gupta said, with members speaking Hindi, Gujarati and Punjabi. The meetups, she said, are their “comfort zone.”

One of the attendees, Chandra Lakhiani, said the meeting “refreshes us.”

“ At this age, we need company,” she added.

Naresh Chopra's daughter convinced her to come.

“ Recently, my husband has moved to the senior facility that he's not able to see or anything, so I was all by myself in the house,” she said. “I really liked it here, so I am enjoying it, and I keep in touch with them.”

Between meetings, the group stays in touch through WhatsApp.

Sometimes, she said, she calls her friends from the group too.

“ We enjoy a lot because we are senior citizens, and we come over here, chit chat and meet people,” another attendee, Pradeep Patel, said while laughing. “We are not getting older. We are becoming younger and younger.”