First Generation Iranian Immigrants and the Question of Cultural Identity: The Case of Iowa

Chaichian, Mohammad A.

doi:10.2307/2547288

Cited by 24 publications

(13 citation statements)

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“…At the same time, the underreporting of the Iranian American population has posed some challenges for conducting research in the community, which have been noted by various scholars working within the community in the United States. Chaichian (1997), Mostofi (2003), and Higgins (2004) describe various difficulties of conducting research on the Iranian American community, including heightened concerns about privacy, low response rates to surveys, and intentional and unintentional misrepresentations in participant responses. Higgins (2004) explains that the difficulty of collecting survey data has led to a predominance of qualitative social inquiry on the Iranian American population.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Pedagogy of Visibility: Constructs and Contests of Iranianness in a Community-Organized School in a Large Southern U.S. City

Shirazi

2014

Diaspora, Indigenous, and Minority Education

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Pedagogy of Visibility: Constructs and Contests of Iranianness in a Community-Organized School in a Large Southern U.S. City

Shirazi

2014

Diaspora, Indigenous, and Minority Education

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“…The process of adaptation to a new sociocultural context acculturation-has forced Iranians to confront many cultural barriers. A number of studies on Iranian acculturation have shown that first-generation Iranians acculturate selectively-taking the path of assimilation into the host culture through attainment of education and upward mobility, while concurrently maintaining their core homeland cultural beliefs, including family values (Chaichian, 1997;Hoffman, 1990;Mostofi, 2003). This in turn has influenced the acculturation of their children.…”

Section: Iranians In Australiamentioning

confidence: 99%

Acculturation and Cultural Preferences of Second-Generation Iranians in Australia

Asghari-Fard¹

2018

AES

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Migration has always played an essential role in the history of mankind. At present the intensity of cross-border mobility are much higher than in previous decades. In many countries, children of immigrants constitute a large sector of the population. These children live between two cultures and value systems: those of the parents' country of origin and of those of the host country. Living between two cultures requires cultural adjustment-referred to as acculturation.Based on carefully targeted survey research, this quantitative study examines acculturation of second-generation Iranians (SGI) in Australia. It examines the interplay between participants' socio-demographic background, cultural practice, parental versus participants' cultural preferences, attitudes towards the host nation and cultural acquisition.The results show patterns of biculturalism: while acculturated to the host culture, SGI prefer to maintain aspects of their native culture and tradition.

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“…It is this often tortuous process that takes up the time of family courts in Iran (Mir-Hosseini and Longinatto 2003). And that is for the dissolution of a regular marriage (nekāh), not the variety of marriage possible in Shi committed to Islam ("spiritual," agnostic, or atheist or otherwise affiliated) or, to a lesser extent, to take the step of converting to some denomination of Christianity (Chaichian 1997;Mobasher 2012). What is unusual here, beyond the fact that Brian converted while still in Iran in 1968, was Brian's insistence on the advantages he perceived in Iranian law and society while simultaneously insisting on the advantages of living as a naturalized American and Christian convert in 2002.…”

Section: Proposed Revisionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gender, Madness, Religion, and Iranian-American Identity: Observations on a 2006 Murder Trial in Williamsport, Pennsylvania

Amin

2017

Social Sciences

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Using participant observation, oral history interviews, and a study of court transcripts, Internet chats, and press coverage of a 2006 murder trial of an Iranian-American man in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, we can better appreciate the dynamic intersection of ethnicity, religion, and gender in constructing the social identity of Iranian-Americans. Brian Hosayn Yasipour, who immigrated to the United States in 1969, was convicted of murder in the third degree for killing his four-year-old daughter in 2001 during a custody dispute with his estranged, Iranian-born wife. He managed to avoid the death penalty. Debates about his guilt in America hinged on assessments of his mental state at the time of the crime and this, in turn, hinged on debates about how normative his actions would have been in Iran. Until his arrest, Brian had led a highly mobile life-moving back and forth between America, where he lived as a Christian, and Iran, where he visited as a Muslim. Was he a calculating Iranian-Islamic patriarch, outraged at the defiance of his wife and the attitudes of American courts toward his paternal rights? Or was he, per the court transcripts, a "white Christian" and survivor of childhood rape back in Iran, who lapsed into madness under the strain of his second divorce? Brian actively blurred these issues in court appearances before and after the murder-often expressing his agency in terms of preserving his imaginary and physical mobility.Keywords: Iran; America; immigration; Muslim; filicide; gender; identity; mobility; Islamophobia; homophobia 1. Introduction OverviewIn this study I make use of a "regimes of im/mobility" approach (Schiller and Salazar 2013;Hackl et al. 2016) to analyze how ethnic identity, religious identity and gender ideology influenced the trial of an Iranian-American man in Williamsport, Pennsylvania for murder. Trial transcripts clearly illustrate how both the defense and prosecution exploited the ambiguity of Brian Yasipour's identity to bolster arguments for and against the proposition that Brian was legally insane at the time of the crime. But they also illustrate that Brian himself did not simply exist in a liminal state-not quite American, not quite Iranian-but deliberately moved between Iranian and American contexts both physically and conceptually from the time he arrived in the United States in 1969 until his arrest. He continued to assert his mobility conceptually while incarcerated, both before and after his conviction.This study is also based on my observations as a pro bono consultant to pre-trial preparations of Brian's attorneys from [2004][2005][2006], interviews with a number of participants conducted between 2010 and 2014, local media coverage, and the Internet postings of individuals who monitored the trial. These sources clearly illustrate the instability of the social categories applied to Brian Yasipour and his family by the Court and local community. The trial accomplished a sort of judicial assimilation 2008, para. 7-8). The words "Iran," "Iranian" or "immigr...

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First Generation Iranian Immigrants and the Question of Cultural Identity: The Case of Iowa

Cited by 24 publications

References 0 publications

The Pedagogy of Visibility: Constructs and Contests of Iranianness in a Community-Organized School in a Large Southern U.S. City

The Pedagogy of Visibility: Constructs and Contests of Iranianness in a Community-Organized School in a Large Southern U.S. City

Acculturation and Cultural Preferences of Second-Generation Iranians in Australia

Gender, Madness, Religion, and Iranian-American Identity: Observations on a 2006 Murder Trial in Williamsport, Pennsylvania

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