Pars Arts

Hey, Where’s MY Tehrangeles?

Nazanin of Iranian Truth just wrote a post pointing to a PostGlobal article by Amar Bakshi about Iranian-Americans and how they feel about U.S.-Iran relations. The PostGlobal project counts Hossein Derakhshan and Ali Ettefagh as its two Iran-expert bloggers, and Bakshi’s series, “How the World Sees America,” looked at Iranians in Los Angeles recently. His post about the politics of so-called “Tehrangelinos” includes a short video clip of Reza Aslan, who says, “The Los Angeles Iranian community came here with their Swiss bank accounts and, you know, with their suitcases full of cash, and they created a pretty good life for themselves here in Los Angeles”:

I have nothing but respect for Aslan, our community’s most visible and prolific political wunderkind, but I want to challenge what I think are some gross misrepresentations of Tehrangeles in this statement (though it’s important to note that it’s a very short clip which may just be lacking some context, and I think Bakshi actually did a pretty good job getting a fairly representative slice of Tehrangeles life, even if many of its players are already so recognized that Iranians in L.A. might not get much new info). I won’t deny for a second that, yes, many Iranian-Americans in Los Angeles are indeed “established” - it’s just a way to say that lots of them live on the Westside as doctors/lawyers/engineers who drive expensive cars. Yes, many of them were very wealthy in Iran and got out immediately after the revolution, many were very pro-Shah, many have ridiculous or ill-informed political views.

But I am getting more than a little annoyed at the poor picture that the rest of the country - and the global Iranian community - has and keeps getting of us “Tehrangelinos” as clueless rich people living in a nostalgic bubble in Westwood, because that’s only part of the picture. Why is it okay to boil down all of Tehrangeles to this stereotype?

The truth is that Tehrangeles is home to a really diverse if disjointed Iranian community. And Iranians continue to immigrate to Los Angeles long after the revolution, but for some reason, the more recent transplants are nearly invisible in most mainstream reports about the community.So my question is: why don’t we recognize the Iranians in Los Angeles who work in supermarkets, who drive old cars? Who are poor, on welfare and food stamps, or homeless? What do they think about Iran and the U.S.? There’s a sizable community of Iranian Christians, who are largely ignored in most reportage, which always touches on Muslim and Jewish Iranians. Where are they in stories about us, or stories by us? There are Iranian “day care” centers in Los Angeles, full of senior citizens that have seen a lot of history and might have some interesting things to say about Iran; does anyone care about them?

Nazanin’s post tells Iranian-Americans to wake up. I’m inclined to agree, but I’d flip that around to ask anyone that writes about Tehrangeles to wake up, too. Perhaps drive over the hill and into the Valley, look beyond what’s deemed the “established” community, and give Iranians in Los Angeles a little respect and a little credit. I’m so tired of smug Iranian San Franciscans or Torontonians, among others, talking smack about my city. Tehrangeles is not as narrow as the vision of the people who disdain it.

What Persian blogs do you read?

Sorry to be brief and follow with another question, but I’m looking to populate my feed reader… do you have any recommendations?

“Cultural Renaissance in Iran?” Panel at Stanford, October 10

NorCal Iranians: Check out this cool panel discussion entitled “Cultural Renaissance in Iran?” this Wednesday, October 10, from 6-9 pm at Stanford University’s Lane History Corner (click for the map - it’s building 200). The panelists are:

• Abbas Milani, director of Stanford’s Iranian Studies Program and noted Iran scholar
• Arash Sobhani, musician and Kiosk’s front man
• Ahmad Kiarostami, director of the two most recent Kiosk music videos
• Pardis Mahdavi, anthropology professor at CSU Pomona who’s writing a book about Iran’s sexual revolution

Kiarostami and Mahdavi were among the most memorable speakers of this year’s IAAB conference, and Arash Sobhani and a couple of Kiosk members are scheduled to perform, as well.

What’s your favorite English-Persian/Persian-English dictionary?

I’ve got a little project going, which involves reading one or two Persian blog posts a day to improve my Persian reading speed and proficiency. Today, I read some Khorshid Khanoom. I understood 99% of the words in her September 30 post, and the ones I didn’t get, I resolved with the Dictionary of Mamanjoonam (aka, my mom). But I need an actual dictionary to take this project to the next level, something I can keep next to my computer or throw in my bag (when I get really ambitious and pick up a good Persian book).

I snooped around some and found Dariush B. Gilani’s English Persian Dictionary on my sister’s bookshelf this afternoon. I really like it because it’s got English transliterations of the Persian alongside the Persian text, like sweet little literacy crutches, but I want something that’s got English-Persian and Persian-English because most of the time I’ll be looking up Persian words for their English meaning. Anyone have any recommendations?

Iranians on the Internet: Post-Mortem

So it’s been more than a week since the Iranians on the Internet conference happened in SF, and here are my thoughts, which I’ve been mulling over pretty much all this time:

1. Could blogs be the best teach-yourself-more-Persian tool for Iranian hyphenates? I think so! Some of the bloggers read some really good writing, particularly Leva Zand, whose profanity-peppered, satirical short story taught me at least one new choice word. (Sort of - I’m still trying to get someone to explain to me exactly what it means, but I’m not really sure who to ask because, well, it’s a bad word but I don’t know just how bad.) So while I’m not abandoning my efforts to find a good Persian book to read, I’ll be adding some Persian blogs to my feed reader. They’re much easier to read than news sites, seeing as blogs don’t generally employ the same horribly stilted, formal language of, say, Iranian newspapers.

2. Gathering does not equal conference. My expectations of the day were my own fault, because I expected a conference format - for instance, panels of bloggers instead of individual readings of blog posts. The event’s flyer clearly called it a gathering, though, which is what it was: a group of people who mostly knew each other from the online world, coming together offline. Gatherings and conferences are very different things. But regardless, two things that I was expecting from the day didn’t happen and I still wish they had. The first was an actual panel on Iranian.com, which I thought was going to happen because of the advertising about the day, but which actually turned out to be a surprise award ceremony with speeches about the site from various contributors. Jahanshah Javid definitely deserved the recognition but perhaps there could have been a panel talking about the site and its impact, and then the award? The second was a Balatarin.com presentation, which didn’t happen at all and which I’d really been looking forward to.

3. The music was awesome. Hamed Nikpay has some pretty legit pipes, man. I missed the first half of his performance because I was taking a breather outside and then kicked myself for it when I saw how good he was. And he had a non-Iranian guy playing the daf and miscellaneous accompanying percussion. Arash Sobhani of Kiosk was there, too, but unfortunately there was no singing from him.

4. Iranian bloggers = friendliest bloggers ever? Again, I think so. It was such a giving, open, friendly, and forthcoming group. I liked the questions people asked each other after each blog reading, and several times what I heard was that blogging was a crucial part of community building for recent immigrants of Iran to the U.S.

Also - lots of coverage of this event, which is cool… though I still wish they had a website for it all! See Iranican’s coverage below:
Part 1

Iran So Far

SNL’s take on Ahmadinejad…

Highlight: “I know you say there’s no gays in Iran… but you’re in New York now, baby.”
(Thanks, Shobeir!)Thoughts?