What narratives do second generation Iranian Americans use to understand their Iranian background and to situate themselves as Americans? I addressed this research question by conducting four in-depth interviews and two focus groups with women and men of Iranian descent between the ages of 18-27, who were born or have been in the U.S. since the age of 10. Through my interviews and the subsequent analysis I was able to illustrate that second generation Iranians utilize various narratives to situate themselves as Americans. In particular, three narrative themes emerged from my research. The immigrant narrative explored the processes that second generation Iranians go through in order to become Americans. The narrative of the Persian Empire and the Iranian regime allowed second generation Iranians to distance themselves from the negative connotations that are associated with the Iranian regime and the Middle East, by conjuring up the images and history that is associated with the Persian Empire. Lastly, the race narrative illustrates that second generation Iranians use a multitude of racial and cultural narratives to become a part of the white American mainstream, while simultaneously coming to terms with their “not quite white” ethnic identities. Iranian Americans use these particular narratives to understand their Iranian background and to situate themselves as Americans. Moreover, these narratives illustrate that Iranians occupy complicated subject positions in the U.S. due to the global politics that surround their identities.

In our exploratory paper, we propose to interrogate how Western journalists and segments of the Iranian Diaspora contribute to the subjectification of Iranians within Iran, with an emphasis on recent representations of Iranian youth subculture. Representations of Iranian youth as restless, rebellious, and hedonistic have several political implications, which we will explore utilizing a discourse analysis of diasporic voices and various English language news media. For example, such representations, rather than posit civilizational difference ala Said's "Other", are premised on notions of cultural similitude, which allow for a form of identification and solidarity with the people of Iran in opposition to the regime. The cultural knowledge of the Iranian Diaspora concerning the purported aspirations and frustrations of people within Iran have fashioned an image of Iran as divided between a wholly repressive Islamic state and society beseeching and, most importantly, ready for liberation. Indeed, the image of a freethinking generation held captive by “mad mullahs” is not unrelated to efforts by groups who favor military intervention in Iran who used similar arguments in the case of Iraq. Furthermore, Western journalists cum Iran experts’ persistent reportage on affluent youth cultural practices almost always frame them as expressions of a culture of resistance. Indeed, a celebratory tone pervades journalistic discourse on Iran after the “discovery” that young Iranians have internalized the Dionysian drives of the West beamed in on satellite TV and the Internet, and in the process circumvented Islamist indoctrination. The Iranian regime has responded by stepping up security against what they view as Western cultural aggression. Western incitements to levity, as we will argue, have played a role in the Iranian regime’s decision and justification for increased government repression of youthful “vices.” Finally, we examine how members of the Iranian Diaspora contribute to representations through an active engagement in representational tropes and more passive but no less performative celebration of conviviality and secular levity, which differentiates them from the austere and repressed culture of the regime and of the Arab other. Drawing on Western and Iranian sources, with a focus on diasporic views and voices, we will analyze the discursive contours of representations of Iranian youth and their political implications. We argue current representations lead observers towards a binary and reductive understanding of political contention and public culture in Iran where intervention is necessary to rescue the West’s cultural brethren and/or regime collapse is inevitable.

Now more than ever, sectarian and ethnic identities have assumed larger roles in Iraq’s political conflict due to a sectarianism discourse and sectarian infighting. Since before the 2003 Iraq war, many US policymakers and the media have sustained this discourse by presupposing that communal identities reign supreme in Iraq, and that there is therefore no societal cohesion as Iraqi national sentiment and identity do not exist. This simplistic postulation is inadequate and can lead to disastrous proposals- leaving a nuanced and multi-layered understanding to be pursued. Therefore, this paper seeks to speak to the prevailing destructive discourse that sectarianism is some essential phenomenon in Iraqi society. It has three aims: (1) to insert my findings into the larger academic discussion on the various representations of diasporic identity and memory, (2) to explore their link to homeland conflict by focusing on a sample of the Iraqi diasporic community, which thus far has been largely understudied, and (3) to address and offer a corrective to the understanding of Iraqi society. The study examines Iraqi diasporic identity-formation by analyzing 77 extensive interviews conducted between December 2007 and May 2008 with members of the Iraqi diasporic community residing in the Washington DC-Metropolitan area. Most of the interviews were one-on-one; seven of them were family interviews. The interviews spanned the diverse ethnic and religious communities of Iraqi society: Arabs, Kurds, Turkomen, Chaldeans, Armenians, Muslims, Christians, Jews, and Yazidis. The interviewees were divided along class lines, level of religiosity, and political views vis-à-vis the 2003 Iraq war. This paper traces these interviewees' self-narratives from their time in Iraq until today; and examines if and how their identity-formations have been affected since leaving Iraq and more specifically after the 2003 Iraq war. Through nostalgic memories, many Iraqis have frozen their past to cope with the perplexing present, and project the frozen past to the future as a refuge for their identity. A majority of the interviewees’ self-narratives are in opposition to US policy and media discourses. They do not identify with post-2003 Iraq but rather with the “Real Iraq” they create through their memories, blame the violence on external forces, reject the sectarianism discourse, tell their memories of a unified Iraq, and hope for a homegrown democratic government that places Iraqi society as its main priority. They live in a condition of diasporic (dis)enchantment and have created refuge identities that provide them a sense of permanence.

My current research looks at the effects of refugee status on shifting modes of identity, focusing on the case of Iraqi refugees. This research proposal follows up a study that included a representative survey of Iraqis still living in the country from 2004-2006 (Inglehart et al 2006). The results of these surveys indicate that the tendency of Iraqis towards xenophobia and in-group solidarity is among the highest of any group in the world, not only among compatriots versus other nationalities, but also between the major ethnic groups within Iraqi society. I want to examine what happens to identity, as well as xenophobia and in-group solidarity, for Iraqis who have fled the country. What is the role of Sunni, Shia, Christian or Kurd identity for Iraqi refugees? To what extent do these identities remain salient outside of Iraq, particularly as the security situation changes, and what is their effect on the ability of refugees to survive in a foreign society? Finally, I would like to look at the role of the Internet in keeping Iraqi refugees connected across long distances, which may help to establish a means of contacting a large enough sample of them for this project. In order to analyze the questions laid out above, I will run surveys and/or focus groups in a number of possible host-countries for Iraqi refugees. One aspect of this study will be the creation of an Internet survey, one that could be emailed possibly using adaptive sampling techniques to reach the widest population possible. Currently the highest proportions of Iraqi refugees live in Jordan and Syria. I will be spending time in these areas during this summer. Through some contacts I have at the UNHCR, I am hoping to get some access to Iraqi refugee families and carry out an informal pilot study to test the feasibility of this project. The results of this study would test the argument put forth in the study referred to above that existential insecurity leads to increased xenophobia and in-group solidarity in a different setting. Further, it will add insight into the salience of ethnic identity across borders. Finally, it will examine the role of the Internet in keeping diaspora communities connected and the feasibility of using internet-based methods for gathering information on refugees.

As a consequence of growing inter-religious tension and violence between the Muslim and Christian population of the Late Ottoman Empire, an increasing number of Assyrians came to consider emigration the only solution for survival and peace. Thousands from areas such as Diyarbakir, Kharput, and Mardin, indigenous people of the region, decided to leave an ancient heritage and deep roots in Near Eastern culture and lifestyle behind. The majority of the Assyrian emigrants who left Anatolia in the period between 1890 and 1920 travelled through Constantinople and European ports to the “New World”. Many would settle in the New York/New Jersey area, in Chicago, and all of California. Within a generation, a network of social and cultural associations came to be established, resulting in the foundation of a nation-wide federation in 1914, the Assyrian National Union. Through a number of preserved local and universal newspapers, journals and magazines, often written in Ottoman Turkish and Assyrian, the early period is quite well documented. It appears most likely that many Assyrians assimilated within only two decades of time. Thus, the second generation Assyrian American community left much fewer sources, which is why very little is known about it. Most recently, a magazine named “Assyrian Progress” (Shushoto Othuroyo) was rediscovered, digitalized and made available for research after having remained completely unknown for seventy years. It was published as the official organ of the “Assyrian American Benevolent Association of Los Angeles” between 1932 and 1938. The association constituted of members belonging to the Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch who had emigrated the Ottoman Empire some twenty years earlier. In the Assyrian Progress, we read of the many socio-cultural activities of Assyrians from California, but also of the East Coast. Articles about history, culture, language, politics, daily life and other contemporary subjects offer a unique source for the study of one of the earliest Assyrian communities in the West. Also, it offers the possibility of studying a hitherto unknown chapter of American immigration history. The paper will analyze identity and self-perception of Assyrian Americans during the 1930s. It aims to contribute to the understanding of integration and assimilation processes of stateless minorities in the “Melting Pot” of the first half of the 20th century as well as to the transformation of Assyrian identity in the early Diaspora.