iranian american

Iranian Americans are United States citizens or nationals who are of Iranian ancestry or who hold Iranian citizenship.

Iranian Americans are among the most highly educated people in the United States. They have historically excelled in business, academia, science, the arts, and entertainment.

Most Iranian Americans arrived in the United States after 1979, as a result of the Iranian Revolution and the fall of the Persian monarchy, with over 40% settling in California, specifically Los Angeles. Unable to return to Iran, they have created many distinct ethnic enclaves, such as the Los Angeles Tehrangeles community. The Iranian American community has become successful, with many becoming doctors, engineers, lawyers, and tech entrepreneurs.

Based on a 2012 announcement by the National Organization for Civil Registration, an organization of the Ministry of Interior of Iran, the United States has the highest number of Iranians outside the country. In 2021 the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Iran published new statistics showing that 1,500,000 Iranians who were born in Iran are living in the U.S. according to the most recent data. However this number only represents Iranian born population who moved to the U.S. at some point and does not include the number of U.S.-born Iranians and other groups with Iranian ancestors.

Terminology

Iranian-American is sometimes used interchangeably with Persian-American, partly due to the fact that, in the Western world, Iran was known as "Persia." On the Nowruz of 1935, Reza Shah Pahlavi asked foreign delegates to use the term Iran, the endonym of the country used since the Sasanian Empire, in formal correspondence. Since then the use of the word "Iran" has become more common in the Western countries. This also changed the usage of the terms for Iranian nationality, and the common adjective for citizens of Iran changed from "Persian" to "Iranian." In 1959, the government of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Reza Shah Pahlavi's son, announced that both "Persia" and "Iran" could officially be used interchangeably.Yarshater, Ehsa
Persia or Iran, Persian or Farsi
, ''Iranian Studies'', vol. XXII no. 1 (1989) The issue is still debated today. Majd, Hooman, ''The Ayatollah Begs to Differ: The Paradox of Modern Iran'', by Hooman Majd, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 23 September 2008, , 9780385528429. p
161
/ref>

There is a tendency among Iranian-Americans to categorize themselves as "Persian" rather than "Iranian", mainly to dissociate themselves from the negative stereotypes of Iranians in media. Some Iranian-Americans also don't prefer "Iranian" to disassociate themselves with the Islamic Republic of Iran, yet this rationale has been criticized as the term "Iran" was widely used before 1979 as well. The term "Iranian" is regarded as more inclusive than "Persian", as the term "Persian" excludes non-Persian ethnic minorities of Iran. While the majority of Iranian-Americans come from Persian backgrounds, there is a significant number of non-Persian Iranians such as Azeris and Kurds within the Iranian-American community, leading some scholars to believe that the label "Iranian" is more inclusive, since the label "Persian" excludes non-Persian minorities.

History

Early history

One of the first recorded Iranians to visit North America was Martin the Armenian, an Iranian-Armenian tobacco grower who settled in Jamestown, Virginia in 1618. Mirza Mohammad Ali, also known as Hajj Sayyah, was an Iranian who came to North America in the 1800s. He was inspired to travel around the world due to the contradiction between the democratic ideals he read about and how his fellow Iranians were treated by their leaders. He began his travels as a 23-year-old looking for knowledge, to experience the lives of others, and to use that knowledge to help with Iran's progress. His stay in the United States lasted 10 years, and he traveled across the country from New York to San Francisco. He met a variety of influential American figures including President Ulysses S. Grant, who met with him on several occasions. On 26 May 1875, Hajj Sayyah became the first Iranian to become an American Citizen. He was imprisoned upon his return to Iran for taking a stand against living conditions there. He looked to the United States to protect him but to no avail. During the peak period of worldwide emigration to the United States (1842–1903), only 130 Iranian nationals were known to have immigrated.

First phase of emigration

The first wave of Iranian migration to the United States occurred from the late 1940s to 1977, or 1979. The United States was an attractive destination for students, as American universities offered some of the best programs in engineering and other fields, and were eager to attract students from foreign countries. Iranian students, most of whom had learned English as a second language in Iran, were highly desirable as new students at colleges and universities in the United States. By the mid-1970s, nearly half of all Iranian students who studied abroad did so in the United States. By 1975, the Institute of International Education's annual foreign student census figures listed Iranian students as the largest group of foreign students in the United States, amounting to a total of 9% of all foreign students in the country. As the Iranian economy continued to rise steadily in the 70s, it enabled many more Iranians to travel abroad freely. Consequently, the number of Iranian visitors to the United States also increased considerably, from 35,088, in 1975, to 98,018, in 1977. During the 1977–78 academic year, of about 100,000 Iranian students abroad, 36,220 were enrolled in American institutions of higher learning. During the 1978–79 academic year, on the eve of the revolution, the number of Iranian students enrolled in American institutions rose to 45,340, and in 1979–80, that number reached a peak of 51,310. At that time, according to the Institute of International Education, more students from Iran were enrolled in American universities than from any other foreign country. The pattern of Iranian migration during this phase usually only involved individuals, not whole families. Due to Iran's increasing demand for educated workers in the years before the revolution, the majority of the Iranian students in America intended to return home after graduation to work, especially those who had received financial aid from the Iranian government or from industry on condition of returning to take jobs upon graduation. Due to the drastic events of the 1979 Revolution, the students ended up staying in the United States as refugees. These several thousand visitors and students unintentionally became the basis of the cultural, economic, and social networks that would enable large-scale immigration in the years that followed.

Second phase

The second phase of Iranian migration began immediately before and after the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and the overthrow of the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and became significant in the early 1980s. As Ronald H. Bayor writes, "The 1979 Revolution and the 1980–88 war with Iraq transformed Iran's class structure, politically, socially, and economically." The revolution drastically changed the pattern and nature of Iranian emigration to the United States, while the Iran-Iraq War that ensued afterwards was also another factor that forced many of the best-educated and most wealthy families into exile in the United States and other countries. Once basically an issue of brain drain during the Pahlavi period, it was now predominantly an involuntary emigration of a relatively large number of middle- and upper-class families, including the movement of a considerable amount of wealth. During and after the revolution, most students did not return to Iran, and those who did were gradually purged from the newly established Islamic Republic. Many students who graduated abroad after the revolution also did not return, due to the ruling clergy's repression. As a result, the educated elite who left Iran after the revolution, and the new graduates in the United States who chose not to return home, created a large pool of highly educated and skilled Iranian professionals in the United States. By 2002, an estimated 1.5 to 2.5 million Iranians lived abroad, mainly in North America and Europe, due to the Islamic government's authoritarian practices.Torbat, Akbar E (Spring 2002). "The brain drain from Iran to the United States". ''Middle East Journal'' 56 (2): 272–295.

A further notable aspect of the migration in this phase is that members of religious and ethnic minorities were starting to become disproportionally represented among the Iranian American community, most notably Baháʼís, Jews, Armenians, and Assyrians. According to the 1980 US Census, there were 123,000 Americans of Iranian ancestry at that time. Between 1980 and 1990, the number of foreign-born people from Iran in the United States increased by 74 percent.

The revolution caused a drastic change in the Iranian culture. Iran was no longer a thriving country. This is part of the reason so many Iranians began to flee to America.

Contemporary period

The third phase of Iranian immigration started in 1995 and continues to the present. According to the 2000 US Census, there were 283,225 Iranian-born people in the US. According to the same 2000 US Census, there were 385,488 Americans of Iranian ancestry at that time. The 2011 American Community Survey (ACS) estimate found 470,341 Americans with full or partial Iranian ancestry. However, most experts believe that this is a problem of underrepresenting due to the fact that "many community members have been reluctant in identifying themselves as such because of the problems between Iran and the United States in the past two decades." and also because many were ethnic minorities (Jewish, Armenian, and Assyrian Iranians) who instead identify as the ethnic group they are part of rather than as Iranians.Bahareh H. Lampert. ''Voices of New American Women: Visions of Home in the Middle Eastern Diasporic Imagination'' page 50, 2008. Estimates of 1,000,000 and above are given by many Iranian and non-Iranian organizations, media, and scholars. Kenneth Katzman, specialist in Middle Eastern affairs and part of the Congressional Research Service, in December 2015 estimated the number at over 1,000,000. Paul Harvey and Edward Blum of the University of Colorado and the University of San Diego in 2012 estimated their number at 1,000,000,Paul Harvey, Edward Blum. ''The Columbia Guide to Religion in American History'' page 368. Columbia University Press, 14 February 2012. as well as Al-Jazeera. According to the PAAIA (Public Affairs Alliance of Iranian Americans), estimates range from 500,000 to 1,000,000, numbers backed up by Ronald H. Bayor of the Georgia Institute of Technology as well.Ronald H. Bayor. ''Multicultural America: An Encyclopedia of the Newest Americans'' ABC-CLIO, 2011 . page 1080 '' The Atlantic'' stated that there were an estimated 1,500,000 Iranians in the United States in 2012. The Iranian interest section in Washington, D.C., in 2003 claimed to hold passport information for approximately 900,000 Iranians in the US.

Today, the United States contains the highest number of Iranians outside of Iran. The Iranian-American community has produced individuals notable in many fields, including medicine, engineering, and business.

Demographics

Although Iranians have lived in the United States in relatively small numbers since the 1930s, a large number of Iranian-Americans immigrated to the United States after the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Data on this group is well documented by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). According to the 2000 US Census, there were 385,488 Americans of Iranian ancestry at that time. In the 2011 ACS, the number of Americans of full or partial Iranian ancestry amounted c. 470,341.

Population

Federal data on Iranian Americans in the 2010 United States Census was not according to race, but rather ancestry, which is collected by the annual American Community Survey (ACS). Data on Iranian ancestry from the annual ACS is available on the Census Bureau's American Factfinder website. Racially, on the Census, Iranian Americans have been classified as a white American group.

Most experts believe that the underrepresented number of Iranian Americans in the ACS is a problem due to the fact that "many community members have been reluctant in identifying themselves as such because of the problems between Iran and the United States in the past two decades." Estimations of 1,000,000 and above are given by many Iranian and non-Iranian organizations, media, and scholars. Kenneth Katzman, specialist in Middle Eastern affairs and part of the Congressional Research Service, estimated their number at over 1,000,000 in published December 2015. Historians Paul Harvey and Edward Blum estimate their number at 1,000,000 in 2012, as well as Al-Jazeera. According to the PAAIA (Public Affairs Alliance of Iranian Americans), estimates range from 500,000 to 1,000,000, numbers backed by Ronald H. Bayor of the Georgia Institute of Technology. '' The Atlantic'', in 2012, stated that there are an estimated 1,500,000 Iranians in the United States. The Iranian interest section in Washington D.C., in 2003, claimed to hold passport information for approximately 900,000 Iranians in the US.

According to research done by the Iranian Studies Group, an independent academic organization at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Iranian Americans are most likely far more numerous in the United States than census data indicate. The group estimates that the number of Iranian Americans may have topped 691,000 in 2004—more than twice the figure of 338,000 cited in the 2000 U.S. census.

Roughly half of the nation's Iranians reside in the state of California alone. Other large communities include New York/ New Jersey, which have 9.1% of the U.S.'s Iranian population, followed by Washington, D.C./ Maryland/ Virginia (8.3%) and Texas (6.7%).Iranian-Americans and the 2010 Census: Did We Shrink?
by Hossein Hosseini. Payvand.com.

Approximately 6,000–10,000 Iranian Americans reside in the city of Chicago, while up to 30,000 reside in the Chicago metropolitan area. Some of this population is Iranian Assyrian.

Kings Point, New York, a village in Great Neck, New York, is said to have the largest concentration of Iranians in the United States (nearly 30%). However, unlike the population in Los Angeles, the Great Neck population is almost exclusively Jewish.

Nashville, Tennessee has the largest Kurdish population in the United States, with many of them coming from Iran.

Significant Persian population centers

= California

=

It is widely believed that most Iranian-Americans in the United States are clustered in the large cities of California, namely Greater Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, San Diego, Sacramento, and Fresno. According to extrapolated U.S. Census data and other independent surveys done by Iranian-Americans themselves in 2009, there were an estimated one million Iranian-Americans living in the U.S., with the largest concentration—about 300,000 people—living in the greater Los Angeles area.''The Wall Street Journal''
Iran's Political Crisis Fuels Expatriates' Fears, Hopes
/ref> For this reason, the L.A. area, with its Iranian American residents, is sometimes referred to as " Tehrangeles", "Irangeles", or "Little Persia" among Iranian-Americans.

In 1985, the Los Angeles Times estimated 200,000 Iranian Americans were living in California; and by 1991 the estimate jumped to 800,000, however the accuracy of these numbers could be debated due to a lack of data. In 1990, Los Angeles had a larger population of religious minorities than Muslims, who were the religious majority in Iran.

Regarding Iranian-Americans of Armenian origin, the 1980 US Census put the number of Armenians living in Los Angeles at 52,400, of whom 71.9% were foreign born: 14.7% in Iran, 14.3% in the USSR, 11.5% in Lebanon, 9.7% in Turkey, 11.7% in other Middle Eastern countries (Egypt, Iraq, Israel, etc.), and the rest in other parts of the world. Beverly Hills, Irvine, and Glendale all have large communities of Iranian Americans (much of the Iranian population in Glendale being of Armenian descent); 26% of the total population of Beverly Hills is Iranian Jewish, making it the city's largest religious community.Universe: Total population more information 2006–2010 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates
. factfinder2.census.gov'' Los Angeles Times''
Irvine embraces diversity at the polls
9 November 2008.

Iranian Americans have formed ethnic enclaves in many affluent neighborhoods mostly in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. In Los Angeles, Iranians were concentrated in Tarzana, West Hills, Hidden Hills, Woodland Hills, Beverly Hills, Calabasas, Brentwood, and Rancho Palos Verdes. Tarzana has the highest concentration of Iranians in Los Angeles County, according to the U.S. Census in 2000.

Second generation Iranians located outside these concentrated cities showed high rates of marrying a non-Iranian and low literacy rates in Persian.

In San Diego County, La Jolla is considered a Persian enclave. Westlake village also held a large Iranian population and was the first American city to have an Iranian American mayor Iraj Broomand.

=Texas

=
Texas also has a large population of Iranian descent. And like California, Iranians in Texas are concentrated in the larger major cities of the state. Houston has the largest population of Iranians and Iranian expats, with an estimated 70,000 residents (50,000 in 1994), mainly due to the Texas Medical Center and the presence of large energy companies. Houston contains a Persian business district including shops and restaurants that has been dubbed "Little Persia" by the '' Houston Press''.Cook, Allison. "Touring Little Persia," '' Houston Press''. 15 September 1994. p
1
Retrieved on 12 May 2014.Fischer and Abedi, p
269
There are many Iranian ZoroastriansRustomji, p
249
and Baháʼís living there.

Some of the more well known residents of the Houston area in the past or present are Jasmin Moghbeli, Susan Roshan, Shawn Daivari, Farinaz Koushanfar, and Kavon Hakimzadeh (captain of the USS Harry Truman Naval aircraft carrier). Ibrahim Yazdi was a graduate of Baylor College of Medicine and Kamal Kharazi also is an alumnus of University of Houston. Hushang Ansary, an active philanthropist, has been a "founding benefactor" of the Houston Museum of Fine Arts. The George Bush Presidential Library has a gallery named after him. Iranians in Houston particularly came under the spotlight when Iranian student and activist Gelareh Bagherzadeh was murdered in Houston in 2012. The perpetrator, Ali Irsan, was later convicted and sentenced to death for the crime, an honor killing in retaliation against Bagherzadeh's encouragement of Irsan's daughter to leave Islam and marry a Christian man. The other notable Iranian in Texas that gained national attention in recent years was UT Austin's Omid Kokabee who was imprisoned in Iran for political reasons.

The Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area is estimated to have over 30,000 Iranian-Americans. Iran's first astronaut Anousheh Ansari for many years was a resident of Plano, Texas, a suburb of Dallas-Fort Worth. Dallas' Iranian community was large and influential enough to host US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for a private visit in April 2019. And San Antonio and Austin each are said to have 3000-5000 Iranian American residents each, who are mostly attracted to large academic centers of excellence such as South Texas Medical Center and UT Austin or the climate of the Texas Hill Country area that is not un-similar to the southern Iran Zagros Mountains region. The largest concentration of Mandaeans from Khuzestan outside the middle east are settled in the San Antonio area. The Shah of Iran was also last hospitalized at San Antonio's Wilford Hall Ambulatory Surgical Center in Lackland Air Force Base during his last days. This is the same base that trained many pilots of Iran's Royal Air Force before the 1979 revolution.

File:4shanbeh jashn.jpg, Public party during Chaharshanbe Suri in San Antonio.
File:Rooznameh Dallas.jpg, ''Shahrvand'' newsletter has been published in Dallas for over 20 years.
File:Chelokababi san antonio.JPG, A popular Persian restaurant in southern Texas
File:Kavon Hakimzadeh (1).jpg, Kavon Hakimzadeh the captain of the USS Harry Truman is a Texan by birth.

Religion

Many Iranian Americans are non-Muslim due to the religious composition of those fleeing the Iranian Revolution, which included a disproportionate share of Iran's religious minorities, as well as subsequent ex-Muslim asylum seekers and other conversions away from Islam. Many Iranian Americans identify as irreligious or Shiite, but a full one-fifth are Christians, Jews, Baháʼís, or Zoroastrians. Additionally, there are also some Iranian Mandaeans, but they are very small in number. According to Pew Research, about 22% of those who left Islam in the United States are Iranian Americans.

A 2012 national telephone survey of a sample of 400 Iranian-Americans, commissioned by the Public Affairs Alliance of Iranian Americans and conducted by Zogby Research Services, asked the respondents what their religions were. The responses broke down as follows: Muslim 31%, atheist/ realist/ humanist 11%, agnostic 8%, Baháʼí 7%, Jewish 5%, Protestant 5%, Roman Catholic 2%, Zoroastrian 2%, "Other" 15%, and "No response" 15%. The survey had a cooperation rate of 31.2%. The margin of error for the results was +/- 5 percentage points, with higher margins of error for sub-groups. Notably, the number of Muslims decreased from 42% in 2008 to 31% in 2012.

According to Harvard University's Robert D. Putnam, the average Iranian is slightly less religious than the average American. In the book ''Social Movements in 20th Century Iran: Culture, Ideology, and Mobilizing Frameworks'', author Stephen C. Poulson adds that Western ideas are making Iranians irreligious.

There are religious and ethnolinguistic differences among the Muslim, Jewish, Baháʼí, Zoroastrian, Christian, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Kurdish, and Assyrian groups. Calculating the percentage of Christian Iranian-Americans is difficult because most Iranian Christians (especially those raised in the faith) are of Armenian or Assyrian origin; and, apart from identifying as Iranian, a number amongst them also strongly self-identifies as Armenian or Assyrian, rather than as (or apart from) Iranian.

Ethnicity

The majority of Iranian-Americans are ethnic Persians, with sizeable ethnic minorities being Iranian Azerbaijanis, Armenians, Iranian Jews, Kurds, Assyrians, Mandaeans, Turkmen, Baloch, Arabs, among others.

According to Hakimzadeh and Dixon in 2006, members of religious and ethnic minorities such as Baháʼís, Jews, Armenians, and Assyrians were disproportionately represented amongst the early exiles of the 1978–1979 revolution.

Citizenship

According to DHS, in 2015, 13,114 people born in Iran were issued green cards, while 13,298 were issued one in 2016. In 2015, 10,344 Iranians became naturalized, with a further 9,507 in 2016. Nearly all Iranians who reside in the United States are either citizens (81%) or permanent residents (15%) of the United States (2008 survey). Iranian-Americans regard their culture and heritage as an important component of their day-to-day life and their overall identity within the United States.PAAIA Releases 2011 National Survey of Iranian Americans
Payvand.com (7 December 2011).

Integration

Four benchmarks are traditionally used to measure assimilation: language proficiency, intermarriage, spatial concentration, and socio-economic status. Per these criteria, one can determine with a significant degree of confidence that the Iranian-American community has made significant strides in successfully assimilating to a new culture and way of living. According to a survey commissioned by the Public Affairs Alliance of Iranian Americans (PAAIA) in 2008, only 21 percent of Iranian-Americans reported interacting mostly with other Iranian Americans outside of their workplace, demonstrating that most of them have successfully integrated into United States society.

The intermarriage rate is very high among Iranian Americans. It has been estimated that nearly 50 percent of Iranian-Americans who married between 1995 and 2007 married non-Iranian Americans. Research has furthermore indicated that Iranian-Americans who are Muslim are more open to intermarry than those who are members of religious or ethnic minorities, such as Jews and Armenians. Compared to men, Iranian women are less likely to mix or intermarry outside their group, which, according to the PAAIA, is likely because, as a group, they are more likely to adhere to traditional Iranian values, including making marriages that are approved by their families and are within Iranian cultural norms. Regarding language proficiency in the United States among its immigrant groups, the first generation principally speaks their native language, the second generation speaks both English and their parents' language, and the third generation typically speaks only English, while maintaining a knowledge of some isolated words and phrases from their ancestral tongue. The Iranian American community follows this pattern.

Community Outreach

Camp Ayandeh, sponsored annually by the Iranian Alliances Across Borders (IAAB), has attracted children of the Iranian diaspora