Locality, Identity and Community: Jewish Youth in Iran and the United States In this paper, I first present ethnographic data on the contemporary Jewish experience in Tehran, Iran focusing on the constitutive relationship of class, gender, and religiosity, especially among youth. Next, I discuss the formation of Iranian immigrant communities, including Middle Eastern Jewish enclaves in Los Angeles and New York, and illustrate differences in experiences of second-generation Jews and Muslims in adjusting to life in the United States. I then focus on how Iranian Jews, as Mizrahi Jews, originating from, and having lived for centuries on Middle Eastern soil, are creating a context for re-examination of hegemonic notions of American Jewish identity. Iranian Jews maintain particular ethnic, linguistic, social and religious traditions that exert a powerful influence over their practice of Jewish culture in the United States and are challenging the Ashkenazi standard of assimilation that is expected of all arriving Jewish populations regardless of nationality. A theoretical basis for this study is the dialectical relationship between personal and structural resources that drive, shape, and mediate responses of individuals as part of a religious minority in Iran or as recent immigrants in the United States. It is argued that their perceived experiences and reactions can only be understood within the context of how the society at large treats and views this population. Methodologically, I use qualitative ethnographic field study methods, particularly in-depth interviews with adolescents and college-age youth, and oral histories and participant observation to address issues related to Jewish-Iranians in their constructions of the meaning of self, family and community in contemporary Iran and in the United States. This study provides a more nuanced representation of young people's lives in Iran and illustrates the complex intersections of culture, religion and ethnicity among Iranian-American youth. It challenges stereotypic, simplistic and false images constantly circulating in popular and mainstream media about Iranians and Iranian-Americans.