Process
This project has come a very long way, from an overly thorough, optimistic undertaken of immigration patters, to a project that has been repeatedly mismanaged and interrupted, finally to a microcosmic examination of Persian Immigration, specifically that of the Baha’i religion. Despite the thorough personal and academic setbacks I have found some interesting data regarding California politicians and their support for anti-discrimination legislation that would protect Iranian immigrants. While this and the following source work has been obtained through lengthy and painstaking online archive sifting, no further mention will be made to process this post.
Analysis
In comparison with waves of Latin American, Asian American and European American immigrants, the Middle Eastern immigrant population is given little to no time in secondary sources nationally and are even more difficult to find in regards to California. Searching through Roger Daniels Guarding the Golden Door: American Immigration Policy and Immigrants since 1882 in hopes of attaching some of the statistics that I have found to some trends that he expresses in the work. Though it took some serious thinking and historical analysis, success was eventually achieved! American immigration can be explained very simply by a line graph because the peaks and valleys associated with immigration are usually directly connected to some sort of legislative reform or another. Immigration reached its contemporary peak in the 1980’s where more than one million immigrants arrived (Daniels, 215). Why is this important to our study of Middle Eastern immigration? The answer is simple, “Cuban boat lifts” or American foreign policy that supported the defection of Cubans to Florida, and the fact that in 1980 over 70% of the immigrants that came to the United States were from Vietnam, Laos or Cambodia (Visa Vie the Vietnam War) it is not hard to believe that a culturally, religiously and politically unpopular region such as the Middle East and its refugees were completely overlooked by media outlets and historical scholars (Daniels, 215). However, brushing off the reluctance of the academic and journalistic worlds to cover such a valid and humane topic would be hasty. The effects of the 1980 Refugee Act that went a long way to protect international displaced persons, including those from Iran and other Middle Eastern countries, allowed so many immigrants into the United States who were fleeing persecution in many forms that the smaller groups that immigrated to the United States were left without any historical secondary care.
For the sake of historical analysis, from 1971-1980 The United States allowed in 539,447 refugees according the statistics given by Daniels. The United States Department of Homeland Security says that 4,493,314 immigrants were allowed into the United States during that time period, 45,136 of which were Iranian immigrants. A little over one percent of immigrants that arrived in the U.S. during that decade were from Iran. Certainly this shows that despite the large numbers of refugees admitted along side common immigrants there was no substantial spike in overall Iranian immigration.
However, the end of the 1970’s was a tremendously trying time for U.S.-Middle East/Islamic diplomacy. The oil embargo that had just concluded when Regan took office had greatly damaged the countries foreign relations with the lone hegemon, the U.S. This could account for all sides avoiding immigration or emigration from each other’s population. This is all despite the United States’ humanitarian mission to assist refugees. Therefore examination must be given to the following two decades to see if any trends of mutual exclusion decreased. From 1981-1990 the United States allowed in 7,338,062 immigrants, 116,172 of which were Iranian. While not a substantial increase, this does represent a roughly ½ percent rise in Iranian immigration to 1.5% of total immigrants the decade following the turmoil. From 1991-2000 9,095,417 immigrants were admitted, and only 68,556 Iranians were admitted, less than one percent of the total number of immigrants.
When these two decades are examined it clearly shows that a surge of immigration came directly after the Iranian revolution and into Khomeini’s crackdown and institution of Shari’a Law that occurred from roughly 1980 to the end of the Iran-Iraq war in 1988. As the Iranian regime persecuted non-Muslim groups within Iran, the ones who could fled, if not after a substantial period of “waiting things out.” This resulted in a mass of Iranian refugees who were allowed into the United States freely under the recently passed 1980 Refugee Act. This brought in a massive number of Iranian immigrants to the United States, in comparison to their numbers prior to the Revolution. This immediately forced a number of questions: Where will they live? How? Will they assimilate? Acculturate? Will religious factions fight here as they did in Iran? Will some carry their revolutionary or Tudeh (Communist) sentiments with them?
Why Come to California Refugees?
While the proportions of Iranian immigrants/refugees are not as large in the United States as other foreign groups, their aforementioned (in an earlier post, check it out!!) predilection for coming to California cannot be ignored. According to the 2000 Census over 50% of Iranian Immigrants live in California. The answer to why this happened or continues to happen has been elusive until last night, a smoking gun appeared and for once in my life, politics made things more clear. Digging through the troves of collection in the Library of Congress took forever and was defeating my hopes of ever answering why so many Iranians came to California. Enter House Resolution 476 introduced by Representative Martin T. Meehan from the great state of Massachusetts. Why would a piece of legislation, introduced by a Congressman from across the country, be relevant to this study? The answer lies in the 8 cosponsors of the bill, fifty percent of which are from California! While not as obvious as some would like, the domination of California Congresspeople in support of this bill shows not only the voting power of the arriving Iranian immigrants, but the states intent to lead the country in diversity and understanding of other cultures, and the fallout from political struggles. For the Iranian immigrants fleeing Islamic Fundamentalism, California was the “Gold in the hills,” “the jobs picking fruit,” and “the refuge from the Dust Bowl” that these Iranian freedom-seekers and fear-fleers needed. As California has done, and I assume will continue to do for years, for immigrants of all nationalities and religions, so too did it provide a diverse estuary for peoples either fleeing horrible conditions or simply seeking better ones. Sorry there are no pictures or links this week, far too much time in research, next week I will bring the funny back!
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Monday, May 17, 2010
Blog 6 Initial Post
Process
This past Thursday I was headed to Lafayette to supposedly interview with a member of the Persian Baha’I community that has immigrated to the United States. However, there was a miscommunication and I stood outside a closed office for four hours that evening. Unlike the Hoover library disaster, this time I was resourceful and found the number for the Persian American Affairs Office and through them the Baha’I National Center that was incredibly helpful is providing me with copious statistics including all local Baha’I and Persian immigrants to California since the 1900’s. Needless to say I have spent the whole of this weekend deciphering the essential information and attempting to synthesize it in a valuable way. A number of conclusions I have found are very interesting and relevant.
Analysis
• As of 2010 more than 21 thousand Persians have immigrated to the United States since 1901. Of that 5,862 have come to California combining with current residents and children they total over 7,516 people. Nearly twenty percent of all Persians that have immigrated to the United States since 1901 have come to California. This approaches the more important question, why does California represent such a desired location for Persian immigrants? In order to limit the amount of information I have to process for the purposes of this posting I will examine the Persian inhabitants of three separate groups of three cities that constitute different areas of Northern California. These groups will be A: Hayward, San Leandro, and Fremont, B: Marin, Piedmont, and San Ramon and C: Oakland, San Francisco and San Jose. These locations were chosen for three criteria: their proximity to CSUEB, their relative socio-economic status and their population. So, for example, group A are cities close to CSUEB, group B are relatively affluent and group C are larger population centers. These will be analyzed against each other on these criteria in order to see why specifically Baha’i immigration to the Northern California, without consideration given to 1979 revolution, is comparably higher than other areas. These statistics were came with the following description of what was considered “Persian,” “USA Arrivals by Year: These counts include all USA Arrivals that meet at least one of these three criteria: 1) Country of Origin = Iran, 2) Country of Birth = Iran, 3) Ethnicity = Persian. Current CA Persian USA Arrivals: These counts include Persian USA Arrivals (see above note for criteria) who are currently American Baha’is in good standing, residing in California. Counts are given for those with known good mail status, and total regardless of mail status. Current CA Persians: These counts include Persians (using the three criteria above) regardless of their recognition type, who are currently American Baha’is in good standing, residing in California. Counts are given for those with known good mail status, and total regardless of mail status. Unlike the previous set, these counts also include Persians who were born in the U.S. and those that enrolled in the Faith or were registered as children here”
Group A
Hayward: 8
San Leandro: 6
Fremont: 35
Group B
Marin: 7
Walnut Creek: 49
San Ramon: 19
Group C
San Francisco: 33
San Jose: 149
Oakland: 15
Review
I provided these groups above to simply provide statistics as to the current Baha’I Immigrants living within California in these particular areas. I also will attach the document that I was sent with all of the statistics mentioned above. As I began to sift through each group, that was chosen prior to doing the research, I began to notice that the aforementioned criteria of: proximity to Hayward, population and relative income were of little to no value in differentiating as to why the Bay Area is a popular location for Persian immigrants, specifically Baha’is. Moving forward, this Wednesday I will regroup the statistics and try to incorporate the exceedingly confusing format they provided the statistics in, into a more readable and concise format. Also I am doing secondary research as to whether or not I can find alternate criteria for separating or sorting this information to synthesize an appropriate historical assertion.
This past Thursday I was headed to Lafayette to supposedly interview with a member of the Persian Baha’I community that has immigrated to the United States. However, there was a miscommunication and I stood outside a closed office for four hours that evening. Unlike the Hoover library disaster, this time I was resourceful and found the number for the Persian American Affairs Office and through them the Baha’I National Center that was incredibly helpful is providing me with copious statistics including all local Baha’I and Persian immigrants to California since the 1900’s. Needless to say I have spent the whole of this weekend deciphering the essential information and attempting to synthesize it in a valuable way. A number of conclusions I have found are very interesting and relevant.
Analysis
• As of 2010 more than 21 thousand Persians have immigrated to the United States since 1901. Of that 5,862 have come to California combining with current residents and children they total over 7,516 people. Nearly twenty percent of all Persians that have immigrated to the United States since 1901 have come to California. This approaches the more important question, why does California represent such a desired location for Persian immigrants? In order to limit the amount of information I have to process for the purposes of this posting I will examine the Persian inhabitants of three separate groups of three cities that constitute different areas of Northern California. These groups will be A: Hayward, San Leandro, and Fremont, B: Marin, Piedmont, and San Ramon and C: Oakland, San Francisco and San Jose. These locations were chosen for three criteria: their proximity to CSUEB, their relative socio-economic status and their population. So, for example, group A are cities close to CSUEB, group B are relatively affluent and group C are larger population centers. These will be analyzed against each other on these criteria in order to see why specifically Baha’i immigration to the Northern California, without consideration given to 1979 revolution, is comparably higher than other areas. These statistics were came with the following description of what was considered “Persian,” “USA Arrivals by Year: These counts include all USA Arrivals that meet at least one of these three criteria: 1) Country of Origin = Iran, 2) Country of Birth = Iran, 3) Ethnicity = Persian. Current CA Persian USA Arrivals: These counts include Persian USA Arrivals (see above note for criteria) who are currently American Baha’is in good standing, residing in California. Counts are given for those with known good mail status, and total regardless of mail status. Current CA Persians: These counts include Persians (using the three criteria above) regardless of their recognition type, who are currently American Baha’is in good standing, residing in California. Counts are given for those with known good mail status, and total regardless of mail status. Unlike the previous set, these counts also include Persians who were born in the U.S. and those that enrolled in the Faith or were registered as children here”
Group A
Hayward: 8
San Leandro: 6
Fremont: 35
Group B
Marin: 7
Walnut Creek: 49
San Ramon: 19
Group C
San Francisco: 33
San Jose: 149
Oakland: 15
Review
I provided these groups above to simply provide statistics as to the current Baha’I Immigrants living within California in these particular areas. I also will attach the document that I was sent with all of the statistics mentioned above. As I began to sift through each group, that was chosen prior to doing the research, I began to notice that the aforementioned criteria of: proximity to Hayward, population and relative income were of little to no value in differentiating as to why the Bay Area is a popular location for Persian immigrants, specifically Baha’is. Moving forward, this Wednesday I will regroup the statistics and try to incorporate the exceedingly confusing format they provided the statistics in, into a more readable and concise format. Also I am doing secondary research as to whether or not I can find alternate criteria for separating or sorting this information to synthesize an appropriate historical assertion.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Baha'i Immigration to California
Groundwork: The Return of Narrative
Greetings, we welcome all historical refugees here at MEM, bring your knowledge boots and get ready for a thorough trek through the history of California immigration. Apologies must be made and the tardiness of these two posts mustn’t be taken as a sign of insincerity, nay the converse is true! Literally through physical, emotional and most definitely economic hardship I have compiled a group of secondary sources and statistics regarding the policies the United States used to either admit or deny middle eastern refugees into the country. Following similar trends will lead us to the Baha’i; A relatively new religion that found its roots in Iran and the prophet Baha ‘u’llah (pronounced BAH- HA -OO LA). After the Iranian revolution periods of intensified persecution of various Baha’I and other non-Islamic sects led to massive flights in the 1980’s and the 1990’s respectively. In thorough discussion over the reasons for the two spikes in Iranian immigration to the United States Professor Vahid Fozdar and I synthesized that most likely the came in response of two fairly distinct events. The first was rather obvious, the Iranian revolution and the months immediately following that constituted the governmental purge of “antievolutionaries.” The broadness and totality of the suppression the Ayatollah used to squelch his opponents reached far across Iran and took months to achieve. This would account for the previously provided statistics on immigration spikes coming from Iran. The second and most significant spike in Persian immigration to the U.S. came during the early 1990’s and was largely the result of two events. Within Iran the powerful Imam and founder of the Islamic Republic had died leaving an incredibly large power vacuum in his wake. The subsequent power struggles between leading Mulla’s took on traditional revolutionary form. Opponents were met with frequent protesting crowds demanding violent change or removal from candidacy, or outright imprisonment or in worse cases death. As is the case with many violent changes of power, ideologies can switch radical directions in order to emblazon political fervor into reactionary thinking. This caused a massive moral crackdown that lead to many non-Islamic or less religious groups to flee. As the Baha’I community does not receive the same exemptions as due Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians as “people of the book” they received massive persecution because they were largely seen as heretical (This is due to the fact they claim Baha ‘u’ llah is a prophet of God who came after Mohammad).
In order to adequately analyze the plight of Baha’is fleeing Iran I contacted the Persian American Affairs Office that operates in conjunction with the Baha’I National Center. After a length waiting period and a number of online introductions and wordy emails attempting to explain my topic I was eventually and graciously awarded a compilation of statistics that are specifically related to Baha’I immigration into the United States. This Graph shows that from 1901 to 1972 only 58 Persians immigrated to the United States.
Year USA Arrivals
unknown 138
1901 2
1911 1
1917 1
1919 1
1937 1
1940 2
1941 1
1943 1
1944 2
1947 2
1950 1
1951 1
1953 1
1955 1
1956 3
1957 1
1958 4
1959 3
1960 2
1961 3
1962 7
1963 4
1964 2
1965 1
1967 4
1969 1
1970 2
1971 1
1972 2
58
The story takes a grim shift at that point because during the late 1960’s and into the early 70’s the political situation in Iran destabilized thoroughly. Riots became more and more common as Khomeini and his Bazaari (powerful Iranian merchants) allies spread the rhetoric of revolution in and out of the country at theological centers in Qom, and Najaf in Iraq. This forced many people who were in support of the pro-Western Shah to either flee, or plan to, fearing death, persecution and war. The impending revolution can be seen through the remainder of these statistics.
1973 110
1974 173
1975 195
1976 357
1977 543
1978 578
1979 1593
1980 801
1981 396
1982 439
1983 234
1984 368
1985 329
1986 559
1987 414
1988 334
1989 320
1990 261
1991 159
1992 164
1993 205
1994 214
1995 224
1996 368
1997 440
1998 549
1999 306
2000 874
2001 1378
2002 787
2003 1027
2004 993
2005 953
2006 1120
2007 1155
2008 775
2009 913
2010 356
Total 21102
The most obvious spikes come from the 1979 Revolution and the 2001 war on terror and again during the war on Iraq in 2003. This is very interesting, showing how local populations, fearing religious persecution will leaves, if not in force, in increments. This is quite parallel to a statistic provided by Roger Daniels in Guarding the Golden Door: American Immigration Policy and Immigrants since 1882 the numbers of refugees and asylees allowed into the United States since WWII. While not directly for the purposes of this study, it does show more than a million person increase in the years following the 1979 revolution. What maybe is more important is that in 1980 the international community, namely the United States, adopted legislation defining what a refugee is,
“any person who is outside any country of his nationality or in the case of any person having no nationality, is outside of any country in which he last habitually resided, and who is unable or unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country because of persecution, or a well-founded fear of persecution, on account of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion…”
Understandably this is in response to a major international problem regarding the status of peoples who lost their homes due to the copious amount of national liberation wars that had sprung out of the corpse of imperial countries and their aspirations of subjugation. As a result 5,286 Baha’I have made their way to California and sporadically have taken up residence all along the coast. I will be doing more and more analysis of this information soon, I am only allowed to stare at computer screens for 30 minutes at a time. Most Likely I will be posting more frequently with information as it arises.
Greetings, we welcome all historical refugees here at MEM, bring your knowledge boots and get ready for a thorough trek through the history of California immigration. Apologies must be made and the tardiness of these two posts mustn’t be taken as a sign of insincerity, nay the converse is true! Literally through physical, emotional and most definitely economic hardship I have compiled a group of secondary sources and statistics regarding the policies the United States used to either admit or deny middle eastern refugees into the country. Following similar trends will lead us to the Baha’i; A relatively new religion that found its roots in Iran and the prophet Baha ‘u’llah (pronounced BAH- HA -OO LA). After the Iranian revolution periods of intensified persecution of various Baha’I and other non-Islamic sects led to massive flights in the 1980’s and the 1990’s respectively. In thorough discussion over the reasons for the two spikes in Iranian immigration to the United States Professor Vahid Fozdar and I synthesized that most likely the came in response of two fairly distinct events. The first was rather obvious, the Iranian revolution and the months immediately following that constituted the governmental purge of “antievolutionaries.” The broadness and totality of the suppression the Ayatollah used to squelch his opponents reached far across Iran and took months to achieve. This would account for the previously provided statistics on immigration spikes coming from Iran. The second and most significant spike in Persian immigration to the U.S. came during the early 1990’s and was largely the result of two events. Within Iran the powerful Imam and founder of the Islamic Republic had died leaving an incredibly large power vacuum in his wake. The subsequent power struggles between leading Mulla’s took on traditional revolutionary form. Opponents were met with frequent protesting crowds demanding violent change or removal from candidacy, or outright imprisonment or in worse cases death. As is the case with many violent changes of power, ideologies can switch radical directions in order to emblazon political fervor into reactionary thinking. This caused a massive moral crackdown that lead to many non-Islamic or less religious groups to flee. As the Baha’I community does not receive the same exemptions as due Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians as “people of the book” they received massive persecution because they were largely seen as heretical (This is due to the fact they claim Baha ‘u’ llah is a prophet of God who came after Mohammad).
In order to adequately analyze the plight of Baha’is fleeing Iran I contacted the Persian American Affairs Office that operates in conjunction with the Baha’I National Center. After a length waiting period and a number of online introductions and wordy emails attempting to explain my topic I was eventually and graciously awarded a compilation of statistics that are specifically related to Baha’I immigration into the United States. This Graph shows that from 1901 to 1972 only 58 Persians immigrated to the United States.
Year USA Arrivals
unknown 138
1901 2
1911 1
1917 1
1919 1
1937 1
1940 2
1941 1
1943 1
1944 2
1947 2
1950 1
1951 1
1953 1
1955 1
1956 3
1957 1
1958 4
1959 3
1960 2
1961 3
1962 7
1963 4
1964 2
1965 1
1967 4
1969 1
1970 2
1971 1
1972 2
58
The story takes a grim shift at that point because during the late 1960’s and into the early 70’s the political situation in Iran destabilized thoroughly. Riots became more and more common as Khomeini and his Bazaari (powerful Iranian merchants) allies spread the rhetoric of revolution in and out of the country at theological centers in Qom, and Najaf in Iraq. This forced many people who were in support of the pro-Western Shah to either flee, or plan to, fearing death, persecution and war. The impending revolution can be seen through the remainder of these statistics.
1973 110
1974 173
1975 195
1976 357
1977 543
1978 578
1979 1593
1980 801
1981 396
1982 439
1983 234
1984 368
1985 329
1986 559
1987 414
1988 334
1989 320
1990 261
1991 159
1992 164
1993 205
1994 214
1995 224
1996 368
1997 440
1998 549
1999 306
2000 874
2001 1378
2002 787
2003 1027
2004 993
2005 953
2006 1120
2007 1155
2008 775
2009 913
2010 356
Total 21102
The most obvious spikes come from the 1979 Revolution and the 2001 war on terror and again during the war on Iraq in 2003. This is very interesting, showing how local populations, fearing religious persecution will leaves, if not in force, in increments. This is quite parallel to a statistic provided by Roger Daniels in Guarding the Golden Door: American Immigration Policy and Immigrants since 1882 the numbers of refugees and asylees allowed into the United States since WWII. While not directly for the purposes of this study, it does show more than a million person increase in the years following the 1979 revolution. What maybe is more important is that in 1980 the international community, namely the United States, adopted legislation defining what a refugee is,
“any person who is outside any country of his nationality or in the case of any person having no nationality, is outside of any country in which he last habitually resided, and who is unable or unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country because of persecution, or a well-founded fear of persecution, on account of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion…”
Understandably this is in response to a major international problem regarding the status of peoples who lost their homes due to the copious amount of national liberation wars that had sprung out of the corpse of imperial countries and their aspirations of subjugation. As a result 5,286 Baha’I have made their way to California and sporadically have taken up residence all along the coast. I will be doing more and more analysis of this information soon, I am only allowed to stare at computer screens for 30 minutes at a time. Most Likely I will be posting more frequently with information as it arises.
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