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.