At the first instant, I thought of Jamestown, Virginia.... Take that, Pocahontas!!!
I might have missed that, but for how long have our Iranian fellows have been in America?
I kind of glossed over it, but was going to expand on it a bit later - basically, Pehruz's father was influential, import-export business, some oil money, but leveraged it into many things.
Pehruz is the fourth son of six, so, while smart, no real expectations, other than "be sucessful" - particle physicist is within father's idea of sucessful...and, since Maryam had a brain, getting an education for her was not a bad idea, either, and easiest in the West.
For various reasons, there was, and still is, a sizable Iranian expatriate community in Buffalo, in the University District.
The folks the Rahman's are modeled after. came to the US in '78, He got into the Master's Program in Physics at UB, and then went after his Doctorate - actually, after I was already into writing this story, I realized I had screwed up, as he would have been in Post Doctoral by the time of this story, but I think I'll let it stand.