Iranian Americans : a comparative study of Iranian cultural retention among three generations of Iranian Americans

Iranian Americans are a little-known immigrant group in this country for several reasons. First, they are a relatively small group in proportion to other immigrant groups (i.e. Hispanics and Asians). As of 1992, immigration data from 1979 to 1992 shows that 206,545 Iranians immigrated into this country (Bozorgmehr, 1996). Current estimates state somewhere between 800,000 to over 1 million Iranians live in America, mostly in urban areas such as Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. ( www.persianoutpost.com). Second, because they are a smaller ethnic group and tend congregate to larger cities in this country, they are less noticeable. Finally, and perhaps the most important reason, is because they want to be unnoticed due to the backlash from the Islamic Revolution of 1979, affecting Iranians and Americans in both countries. Since 1979 a new generation of Iranians Americans has been born. They are incorporated in the American workforce, educational system, and other parts of society. While their parents may know much about the language, the society, and the culture of Iran, their offspring are struggling to understand who they are, living in what Karim and Khorrami (1998) call "A World Between." Therefore my research question is: To what degree do the first, one-and-a-half, and second generation Iranian Americans retain their cultural ties to Iran? While the first-generation Iranian Americans maintain many of the cultural practices, there seem to be exceptions to the expectation of the one-and-a-half generation group. This is likely due to the group having a more diverse background and socialization because most of them were raised in countries other than America, although they were raised in Westernized countries. The second-generation immigrants maintain their cultural and ethnic identity to the home country, but not to the degree the first and one-and-a-half generation groups maintain their identity. They were socialized in America and were influenced by the external factors of this culture more so than the Iranian culture they were taught within the home.