(Iranian President Mohammad) Khatami's dialogue between cultures and civilisations should not be addressed only to the western world, but to his own countrymen living in the US as well, Amrollah L., a broker in New York, says.

Following the 1979 Islamic revolution, a large number of Iranians made an exodus to the US to escape the Islamic system which toppled the Pahlavi monarchy, and started a new American way of life. Those born in the US do not speak Farsi and have turned into real Americans, and even their parents are gradually forgetting their cultural origin, the Iranian broker says.

Amrollah L., in New York since 1977, is married to an Irish-American woman and their two kids know neither Farsi nor do they have any information about their father'snative country.

``I could only force them to call me pedar (farsi for father), but that's about it, he says. During a recent visit of my father to New York, the poor old man was neither able to speak one word with his daughter-in-law nor with his two grandchildren. And he left depressed after one month with no prospect and probably no enthusiasm to see any of us again, he adds.

Most Iranians live on the west coast, mainly in Los Angeles, California, and have their own social life, including Iranian restaurants, bakeries, supermarkets, television channels, movie theatres and music concerts.

Azita Y., 21, who is divorced with a 2-year-old daughter, has been living in Los Angeles for more than 20 years. She has no intention to return to Iran for good reasons. Last week I told my mother on the phone that I got divorced and have a boyfriend now ... She fainted, Azita says with a smile, adding: After a couple of minutes, she told me that I was not her daughter anymore and hung up.

Azita complains thatmany Iranian parents have been eager to send their children to the United States to learn the American way of life, but now they cannot live with the logical and natural consequences of their own decisions.

Divorce, especially if there is a child, is a social catastrophe in Iran, and living with a boyfriend exceeds the ultimate limits.

Puya F., a 17-year-old teenager born and living in New Jersey, can only say salaam (a Farsi greeting). He was in Iran in 1991 for three weeks and has no desire to go there again. It was really like a nightmare, they were talking, I didn't understand, I was talking, they didn't understand, he said.pHis sister Persia, 15, also born in New Jersey, has had no good memories, either. I was constantly looking over to my mother for telling me what my relatives were talking about ... And I was always pushed to eat, she says.

Her parents have in the meantime even given up the idea of spending their vacation in Iran. First of all, it is expensive, and it is also no fun for the kids,so what's the big deal about fatherland if there is actually no such thing anymore, their father, Mohammad F., 46, says.

An Iranian medical instructor at the Georgetown University in Washington, who preferred not to be named, termed the new Iranian generation as the lost post-revolution generation.

``I do not know who is to blame for this, but this lost post-revolution generation will soon be fully integrated into the American system as Irano-American, just like the Italo-Americans decades ago, he says.