My research must continue into the Hoover library where I located a number of pictures and documents from the C.I.A. both of Baha'i immigrants leaving Iran and of the violence Khomeini committed against them, Sunni's and pro-Western Shah supporters that could really help people visualize the terror of the Revolution for non-Shia's. Secondly, and admittedly something I failed to do, was gather the rich oral histories of the Baha'i community spread throughout the Bay Area, were it not for my initial snags in research I may have had time to organize these interviews, but ten weeks is ten weeks and I spent near three on peripheral topics. Not all is lost to the dying of the light. I have gathered a wealth of information regarding American immigration policy, Immigration statistics and Persian documents that show governmental dictates from Iran condoning religious persecution. The only problem is, until my Farsi is solid enough to guarantee the translation on my own, I refuse to use it.
I do not know if it is pathetic or motivating, that it took me until the last quarter of my third senior year to realize that the brilliance of California is that it is very difficult to wrap your head around the level of diversity. I think that is why race plays so heavily in California's past because politicians need to form constituent bases out of ethnic groups and therefore they mash together all of Central and South America to "Latino(a)s." I do not know if it shows more ignorance or racism, but through the analysis of immigration statistics and a cursory study of American immigration reform since 1882, the sheer complexity of our state was delivered to me from the "womb of my purposeless splendor." In short, California is the place to be because as an immigrant group, refugee, or naturalized citizen California provides the unique diversity that allows American acculturation along with assimilation. This creates amazing cultural enclaves of hybridization that spawns California's creativity and innovation.
Over-arching, yes, but I cannot explain the beam of light, the size of the light-bulb, nor the clear epiphany that struck me during our class discussion bashing my "Anglo-Protestant" roots that immediately made the history of our state, which has to me been as boring as can be, so relevant and interesting to my familial and cultural history that I am proud to call myself a resident of this great state. A state that internationally provides persecuted peoples with a place to come enjoy democracy (sometimes) while being allowed to maintain as much of your cultural identity as you wish to maintain.
I am sorry for missing the mark and being delayed at nearly every turn, my personal discovery during this course will far outweigh the benefits I have provided anyone, but to the future study of the Iranian Diaspora, Baha'i immigration, Middle Eastern/Western political balances and the effects of subjugation with enough brain food to stimulate the fattest of "buffs." Thank you everyone for the course, I will continue this research at the graduate level with more polish and direction, and hopefully time.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Sometimes I hate the Internet, but I will always love HISTORY!
The wealth of my project has been a disappointment, fraught with rude library attendants, unprofessional archivists and official spokespeople and an essential belief that for some reason, the world is against this project and me. As we know I began with grandiose dreams of analyzing the immigration and effects of three separate events and how they related to the Bay Area. Soon I realized I had undertaken and impossible task and through the most plentiful sources I could find on either of the three subjects, I decided to take on the issue of Baha’I immigration to the Bay Area as a result of the Iranian Revolution. This was initially hindered by an email I received from the Persian American Affairs Committee that told me that “no” Baha’is were persecuted out of Iran during the Iranian Revolution in 1979. This threw a major wrench in my spokes, until in an unrelated discussion with Professor Fozdar, who is a Baha’I himself, I learned that this was untrue, very untrue. I dove back into government archives, attempted a trip to the Hoover archives in Palo Alto and tried to set up a meeting with the Baha’is of Lafayette, a local religious organization that sponsors the upkeep of the 24-westbound freeway. However, despite being forced to miss class and wasting countless dollars of gas money, I came away only with what I could obtain from my own library (which is rather extensive) and government sources. From that I have gleaned the major information and have come to the conclusion that due to the large percentage of Baha’I immigration to California (primarily Los Angeles, and the Bay Area second) that the relative allure of “Hollywood” and the massive diversity and culture that spawns from the Bay Area that many of the more Western-minded Iranians who fled the subjugation of Islamic Law were drawn to California for its structure, society and diversity. In order to portray this in an artistic, creative, and useful manner I will begin with some short movies on the Iranian Revolution, the Baha’I faith, and statistics of immigration numbers to demonstrate the truth of this assertion.
Public History
-The Iranian Revolution began and ended in 1979 with the deposition of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and the rise of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
-After Ayatollah Khomeini consolidated his power, he turned to dissenters, many of whom were from other sects of Islam or other religions all together.
-This is a video that is calling for democracy in Iran and the return of the Shah, it is composed to Persian Hip-Hop, which juxtaposes ancient Iranian language with American culture, showing the connection of large segments of the societies.
-From 1981-1990 over 150,000 Iranians came to the United States, most fleeing religious or political persecution.
-Iranians primarily chose to come to California, with spikes in Immigration coming in 1979, the early 1980's, early 1990's and the early 2000's each in response to the Islamic Revolution, the Oil Embargo and Hostage Crisis, the first Gulf War and the War on "Terror." This points to California's value as a refuge for international immigrants, especially the Bahai. (Taken from the Persian Affairs Office)
-In order to show how this could be displayed interestingly I have to use words because my artistic ability seems to diminish by the year. There would be two Televisions that would splice together scenes of violence on the part of the Shah, Khomeini and Khameini, with the statistics of immigration to the United States by each conflict. To depict the overwhelming percentage of Baha'is who immigrate to California, and the Bay Area I would use two "pin-maps" that showed immigration by year and the eventual locations of Baha'i immigrants by year.
Public History
-The Iranian Revolution began and ended in 1979 with the deposition of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and the rise of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
-After Ayatollah Khomeini consolidated his power, he turned to dissenters, many of whom were from other sects of Islam or other religions all together.
-This is a video that is calling for democracy in Iran and the return of the Shah, it is composed to Persian Hip-Hop, which juxtaposes ancient Iranian language with American culture, showing the connection of large segments of the societies.
-From 1981-1990 over 150,000 Iranians came to the United States, most fleeing religious or political persecution.
-Iranians primarily chose to come to California, with spikes in Immigration coming in 1979, the early 1980's, early 1990's and the early 2000's each in response to the Islamic Revolution, the Oil Embargo and Hostage Crisis, the first Gulf War and the War on "Terror." This points to California's value as a refuge for international immigrants, especially the Bahai. (Taken from the Persian Affairs Office)
-In order to show how this could be displayed interestingly I have to use words because my artistic ability seems to diminish by the year. There would be two Televisions that would splice together scenes of violence on the part of the Shah, Khomeini and Khameini, with the statistics of immigration to the United States by each conflict. To depict the overwhelming percentage of Baha'is who immigrate to California, and the Bay Area I would use two "pin-maps" that showed immigration by year and the eventual locations of Baha'i immigrants by year.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Tying Research Up
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!
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!
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.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Week 4 Reinvigorating the Search
The Process
While this week was supposed to be one of groundbreaking significance for the research aspect of this project, once again my efforts were thwarted by the powers-that-be. In this case manifested solely by the staff of the Hoover library, who after thorough discussion on the telephone and previous work I had done there in the past, still did not let me enter the archives, “no matter what!” To say the least I was thoroughly upset that I was not only out a weeks time, but also seemingly late for the weeks posting. The kindhearted nature of Professor Ivey allowed an extension that drove me straight into the arms of Internet archive sources. Wherein a plethora of information regarding the allocation of Iranian immigrants in California, United States foreign policy documentation and Iranian (English translations provided!) governmental and court documents. Through this wealth of information I have refined the overall topic so as to narrow my field of research and hopefully be able to relay adequate contextual/statistical information to narrate the devastating tale of immigrants who are largely the result of American and/or European foreign policy. So beginning from this post on, the Arab-Israeli conflict will be discussed only as it relates to the historical causality of the Iranian Revolution or American foreign policy following 9/11. While thoroughly attempting to drop two of the three initial topics to save myself time and sanity, I noticed that the narrative of immigration to California as it relates to these two topics is intertwined so homogeneously that adequate analysis of either would necessitate at least cursory analysis of the other. For that reason the topics are being condensed into time periods, one extending from the time just prior to the Iranian Revolution of 1979 to the period just before 9/11. The next period will extend, obviously, from 9/11 to the present, with a cutoff being applied most likely to the Bush administration and beyond that only prognostications will be possible. This week, because my ability to restrain my passion for research is limited, I dove more thoroughly into statistical information and governmental documentation of immigration trends than I did into more thorough, California-centric secondary source material. This will be provided in next weeks post seeing as I would like more than 24 hours to reanalyze set secondary sources. Let us begin!
How Did the Iranian Revolution Affect Immigration to the United States and California?
Migrationinformation.org has compiled large segments of information from the Department of Homeland Security that show the increased rates of foreign-born Iranians immigrating to the United States from 1980-2000. The following chart shows this phenomena.
The peak of Immigration occurred in the 1990’s as Iranian citizens began to realize the futility of their situation at home as a relatively peaceful succession of power occurred as Khomeini died and Khamenei took over. The destinations of these immigrants were usually large cities such as New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles. According to the Migration Policy Institute roughly ten percent of Iranian immigrants decided to come to the San Francisco Bay Area, the second location behind Los Angeles/Orange County (Source:http://www.migrationinformation.org/USFocus/display.cfm?ID=404#8).
These statistics were recorded in the year 2000 where more than 50% of Iranian immigrants lived in the state of California. MPI provided that “according to Census 2000, 55.9 percent (158,613)” of Iranian immigrants in the United States lived in California. The popularity of California as a destination for immigrants is not new to the history of California. The state itself was built upon a richly diverse population of Mexican ranchers known as Californios, and different groups from all over the world that rushed to the Bay Area during the 1849 gold rush that followed Californian statehood in 1848. The connection of this trend will be more thoroughly explored when Guarding the Golden Door is integrated into this analysis. The aforementioned piece is a complex and thorough depiction of American and more specifically Californian immigration policy from 1882 to the present. 1882 being the year of the cataclysmic, racists Chinese Exclusion Act denying Chinese the right to immigrate into the United States in any significant numbers. While, for this weeks purposes only terse mention is made California’s surprisingly rough history of immigration, the tried and true facts of all of this history was not lost on Iranian immigrants fleeing social, religious or moral persecution.
In evaluating statistical information this week a trend was exposed in the socio-economic character of Iranian immigrants who fled the revolution. Twenty percent of all Non-Immigrant Visas issued to Iranians from 2000-2005 were for education, the second largest group following only temporary work visas (MPI, website). While not in itself a particularly valuable statistic when taken into account with the 2000 Census data that said 50.9% of foreign born Iranian immigrants had obtained a Bachelors degree or higher, it does suggest a trend that the educated, or those wishing to be educated, fled the repressive Iranian regime. Here is a map of the allocation of Iranian immigrants as of the 2000 census (MPI, website).
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
The Arab-Israeli Conflict Secondary Source Review
The Arab-Israeli Conflict
Overview
This is an analysis, much like the preceding one regarding the Islamic Revolution of 1979, that will examine four authors’ works in order to contextualize the events, politics and discourses that contribute to Palestinian or Jewish immigrants. Methodologically, this will be achieved by, analyzing the work of the “New Historians” of Israel and using their work to detail the aforementioned goals. Each author, is considered an academic forefather to the “New History” of Israel and therefore are more than qualified sources of information.
One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs Under the British Mandate
Author: Tom Segev
Segev dissects the British Mandate of Palestine so thoroughly that the documentation and citation sometime become overwhelming. His care and attention to detail provide a feeling of complete understanding of a nearly incomprehensible topic. The piece is broken into three parts that serve as a chronological barrier as well as a thematic one. The establishment of the British Mandate in Palestine in 1917, as a result of WWI created the possibility for the widening of a thousand year old rivalry between Arabs and Jews. Segev traces a ten-year line from the mandate in 1917 to 1927 where the rise of violence within occupied Palestine become so consistent that the next section of the book is simply labeled “Terror.” The forced relocation of and economic apartheid that was enforced on Palestinians to the benefit of Zionist immigrants and the Jewish economy (Segev, 286-8). Escalated conflagrations eventually led to an all out war over Jerusalem that began in 1928 over the use of a screen to shield male and female parishioners of the Western Wall (Segev, 298). Poor British leadership, the eventual threat of Hitler and WII, and the poor economic and strategic position of Palestine increased the potential for conflict that raged after the Yom Kippur incident and eventually spilled over into a massacre in Hebron in 1929 (Segev, 314). Political calculations within both Britain and the United States explicitly warned of antagonizing “the extremely important Jewish vote,” which subsequently led to the publishing of the White Paper that detailed British intent to support the establishment of a Jewish state of Israel (Segev, 338). This type of diplomatic maneuvering was lost on most Arab leaders who saw it as a clear signal of Western intent to promote Zionism at the expense of Islam; in many cases this concept was radicalized to the point of Jewish world domination conspiracies, much like those of Hitler.
The political strength of the Zionist Jewish Agency (JA) allowed it to outmaneuver its Arab counterparts and conduct sit-down meetings with high-level Western diplomats (Segev, 345-6). This gave the Zionists added confidence in their local dealings with Palestinian Arabs who still held the majority of the population during this time. This gave rise to both Arab and Jewish nationalist movements that were militantly demanding their own states respectively. These groups conducted open terrorist campaigns against the British, the United States and each other (Segev, 350). At this point in the 1930’s it seemed that “all crime [in Israel] took on a nationalist tinge,” that was turning lines in the sand into concrete pillboxes (Segev, 351). The British wished to undercut tensions by providing jobs for both Arabs and Jews in hopes that economic prosperity who lessen tensions as it had done for the Empire in India (Segev, 356). By pursuing these appeasing policies Britain was sending mixed messages when it would commit the slaughter of an entire Jewish or Arab village in retaliation to a terrorist attack. This would eventually lead to never ending waves of violence that would force peace loving Jews, Arabs and others into forced displacement.
As the 1930’s gave way to the 1940’s, pro-Zionist policies were beginning to show their effect to the population of Palestine and the local Arabs were not happy. According to Segev in the 1930’s the Jews were only 17 percent of the population of Palestine and by the mid 1940’s 30 percent of the country was Jewish, nearly 500,000 (Segevn, 378). As Arabs grew increasingly upset with the British policies and Zionist appropriation of their homeland, Zionists were gaining control of police forces and governmental structures (Segev, 381). The Arabs felt that they were being forcibly denied the rights to governance, but were also being forced to assist in the creation of a Jewish state. This in turn popularized Arab nationalist movements that were met by Zionist terrorist organizations, some of which were sponsored by Jewish governing agencies, such as the Haganah (Segev, 385). Increasing Zionist terrorist attacks and racist rhetoric on both sides deteriorated the political scene until the Zionist leadership determined that war with the Arabs was inevitable (Segev, 393). While this decision could be seen as potentially moot in an area where so much violence was occurring almost daily, but this was a conscious decision by Jewish leadership to use the advance of WWII to eliminate the Arab threat in their lands, that had already been guaranteed to them by the British. As these tensions flared, the British were forced into WWII and subsequently began to suppress dissent within the country violently (Segev, 425). Fearing the creation of a new Ireland in Palestine the British began to quickly determine an exit strategy that in no part took into consideration the stability of the region or political equality of Jews and Arabs.
WWII proved to be beneficial to the establishment of a Jewish homeland because Zionist leadership used the preoccupation of the British to politically ensure the creation of Israel. More radical elements of Zionist organizations declared war on the British in 1944 (Segev, 456). As the Zionist political establishment grew stronger during the war the Arab leadership was marginalized by it. Without a solid central leadership authority anyway Palestinian Arab’s were politically dead once Khalil al-Sakakini turned to the Nazi’s for help during the war. Thus as the war ended, leaving Britain economically insolvent, and the United States victorious the desire of the once great empire to control Palestine was fading more quickly than Britain’s economy. In order to speed up the exit of the British Jewish terrorists increased their attacks, which provoked a tired, poor British army to carry out the worst slaughter of Jews since the Bible (Segev, 476). “Black Sabbath” as the day was called, further reduced British intentions of mandating a peaceable transition of power, which was potentially impossible anyway as the new Hegemonic power, the United States had began to flex its political muscles in the region. The recent holocaust and its subsequent international exposure forced the hand of many humanitarian-minded policy makers to establish a Jewish state (Segev, 491). This may very well have been false seeing as many of the Jews displaced by the Holocaust were European and did not wish to live in Israel. The British gave control of Palestine to the United Nations who voted for partition and a two-state solution in 1947 (Segev, 496). A lack of Arab political subtlety and the weakness of the United Nations prevented the Arabs from obtaining concrete guarantees of a homeland. Many historians argue that the inability for Palestinian Arabs to mobilize was due to their lack of a nationalist spirit that was destroyed as many Arabs fled the terrorist campaigns of Zionists and WWII (Segev, 508). In May 1948 the British finally left Palestine and the much more politically, economically and militarily capable state of Israel invaded Arab territories mandated by the United Nations in order to reclaim Jerusalem (Segev, 518).
The 1948 war to reclaim Jerusalem displaced large portions of the Palestinian population who either fled or were forced into “Iron Cage” open-air prisons that Israel uses to control citizens of the occupied West Bank and Gaza.
The Iron Cage
Author: Rashid Khalidi
While the largest portion of information regarding the British Mandate period and the establishment of Israel is provided above, Khalidi provides a unique Arab perspective to the historiography of the conflict. Primarily his piece provides insight into the 1948-9 dispossession of Palestinians from their homes (Khalidi, XIII). Khalidi is important because rather than blaming the British or Israel for the failure of Palestine to achieve a homeland, he blames the lack of Palestinian leadership that is the result of multiple causes and historical events. He recognizes the intrinsic weakness of Palestine, compared to Israel or even the United States and uses this t contextualize his argument about weak central Palestinian leadership. He claims to not be a “revisionist” historian in the vein of other New Historians because he believes that there is no corpus of Palestinian history and therefore is not able to be “revised,” (Khalidi, XXXVIII). His historiographical output follows in the vein of Edward Said and the post-colonialist discourse that denies the validity of sources of history that are tinged by Imperialist or bigoted ideology. The issue of Palestinian immigration is not directly addressed in those terms. It is defined as the situation of being “stateless” while being subsequently detained within your own land by an allegedly foreign government (Khalidi, 189). Inevitably the failure of the Palestinian leadership to effectively capitalize on opportunities during the British Mandate have allowed for the potential of millions of refugees and “prisoners” as Khalidi refers to Palestinians in Israel. While not an incredibly thorough dissection of this piece was necessary, it does provide a unique context into the Palestinian viewpoint of British and Israeli occupation. When used in parallel with primary documents this source will be invaluable in narrating the struggles of Palestinians and why they would chose to leave their homeland.
Coming in the next days reviews of "The Israel Palestine Conflict: One Hundred Years of War" by James L. Gelvin and "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine" by Illan Pappe
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