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.

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

Part 2
Also, photos: take a look at Talieh Shahrokhi’s pictures of the event.

Iranians on the Internet: Wrap-Up

Unfortunately, I missed Part 3 of this event, which was a live video conference with Khorshid Khanoom (aka Lady Sun), so if anyone has any intel on what happened, please leave a comment or shoot me a note: editorATparsartsDOTcom.

I’m on a shaky road, typing on someone else’s laptop, so I’ll write a longer post on my thoughts about this event and some of the neat people I today when I get home and recover.

Iranians on the Internet: Omid Memarian

Nazy Kaviani is introducing me to everyone here - thanks, Nazy! Just chatted with Omid Memarian, who’s going to be making the introductions when this starts. He is a journalism grad student at Berkeley. Most of the stuff I’d read by him was very Iran-politics oriented so I sort of assumed that was what he’s still writing, but I just learned his beat for this semester is west Oakland. He noted that being a journalist in the U.S. with an accent has its challenges when digging around for a story via phone - so he usually shows up in person.

Iranians on the Internet: Saat Sheni

Continuing the informal pre-talk chats… Check out Saat Sheni, a blog by a really sweet young Iranian woman who started the blog when she moved to isolating Los Angeles two years ago. It’s mostly about her daily life; I love that she has a Tracy Chapman video on the first page now.

Iranians on the Internet

It’s 9:48… I’ve just spent 5 hours in a car and am drinking black tea as we’re all waiting for this to start… looks like they’re still setting up, still putting posters on the wall, and I’ve just met Haji Agha, who kindly told me that he’s linked to this coverage… hi, readers in Iran! I’m sorry this will be in English, but hopefully you’ll feel like you’re here. Jayeh shoma khaliyeh.

Iranians on the Internet Conference in San Francisco

I heard about the “Iranians on the Internet” conference a couple of weeks ago and was planning to attend because I was going to be in the Bay Area, then a friend sent it along suggesting I go but my trip had been canceled, so that was a big bummer. But today I managed to wrangle a way to get up there, thanks to some very kind colleagues who are driving up and agreed to take me along.

You know what that means: live blogging! I’m told there will be wi-fi, so if all goes well, check back here on Saturday for frequent posts about the Iranian blogosphere that attends. Likely it’ll be similar to the Iranian Alliances Across Borders posts covering their conference in April, but there may be some very exciting follow-up to this coverage. I have to stay mum about that until it happens (if it happens). Just cross your fingers, please!

Since I can’t find a website for this conference anywhere, the details are in the image above and also typed out here, in case someone is desperately searching for them on some search engine like I was:

Iranians on the Internet Conference
A one-day gathering of bloggers and Internet gurus

When:
Saturday, September 22, 2007
9 am - 4 pm

Where:
Rosa Parks Hall
Cesar Chavez Building
San Francisco State University
1600 Holloway Avenue, San Francisco (map)

Are you planning on coming? I want to meet you! Drop me a note or come say hi (I’ll be the girl with the white laptop and the big hair).

Update: Nazy Kaviani has posted the day’s schedule and a list of attendees.

“History of Persian Philanthropy” Video from PARSA

This is a quick history lesson in Iranian philanthropy from PARSA. (It’s also the first YouTube video I’ve seen with a legal warning before it begins, which was a little jarring.) I think this would benefit from more text on screen, particularly because there are a lot of Persian terms and old Iranian leaders mentioned, but overall it’s informative and quite interesting.

  

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