Caught in the Middle : Iranian Immigrants Try to Blend Into American Culture Without Losing Identity

It was a gray, drizzly Saturday afternoon and Fereshte Tajadode was waiting for her daughter’s Farsi language class to end. “She’d prefer to be out with her school friends, doing fun things,” Tajadode said. “But she’s starting to adjust and not resent this so much.”

The 60-minute class over, Sara got up from the table and headed for the door. “Mom, we’ve got 25 minutes to get to Knott’s,” she said to her mother, who smiled a resigned smile, knowing the unstoppable force of an 11-year-old with a plan.

Although Sara attends a private school that already gives her plenty of homework, her mother decided she wanted her daughter to learn Farsi, the language of her native Iran. So, for an hour every Saturday, Sara attends a Farsi language class in Westminster sponsored by the Iranian Cultural Assn. of Orange County. Sara, whose English appears flawless, is beginning to read Farsi and takes the class with several other youngsters, one as young as 6.

“We’re just getting into this,” her mother said. “I’m doing it so she can understand where she’s from and what kind of person she is. Later on when she’s older, it will be easier for her to understand who she is if she can read about and understand her heritage.”

Farrokh Shadab, a Westminster pediatrician, can relate. He wishes his 11- and 13-year-old sons were as interested in the lilting poetry of Omar Khayyam as they are in playing baseball and basketball. So far, he says with a sigh, it’s a losing battle.

Doris Ahadpour’s son, now 15, spoke Farsi when the family moved to America from Iran 10 years ago. “He still understands Farsi, but he refuses to acknowledge it,” she said. The reason? “My kids were at a young age, and they were extremely affected by the hostage situation. It was very difficult on all Iranians during that period, because here were people who had been loved and adored by Americans and all of a sudden they were all enemies because of a hostage situation they had nothing to do with. They themselves were running away from the situation, yet so many Americans were extremely cruel, especially to school kids.”

So goes the continuing saga of Iranians in America, caught in a cross fire of emotions that in some ways hasn’t let up since 1979, when Ayatollah Khomeini’s revolutionary forces overthrew the Shah of Iran and held American hostages for more than a year.

On one hand, their problems are as fundamental as those of other immigrant groups: how to adapt to American life while not losing a grip on their own heritage. And at first blush, it would seem the Iranians would have a running start, for unlike most refugee groups that came to the United States over the years, many Iranians had educations and professional expertise when they arrived. Indeed, it was the educated, professional and more conservative class of Iranians to whom the fervor of Khomeini’s Islamic revolution was most distasteful.

But even for those who have settled into apparent comfort in culturally diverse Southern California, these remain troubled times for Iranians.

Interviews with about 20 Iranians and others suggest a sobering duality for many Iranians in Orange County: while there has been a clear assimilation into the mainstream, their happiness is tempered by ongoing concern about what is happening to their tradition-rich homeland. That concern goes beyond just the Iraqi bombs that fall on their soil; it includes the image that the Khomeini revolution has left with Americans and the international community. While President Reagan’s statements in recent weeks have separated Khomeini from the bulk of Iranians, that message doesn’t always filter down. As a result, many Iranians still feel like strangers in a strange land.

While those concerns may seem overly political and abstract and not connected to day-to-day life, Iranians in Orange County beg to differ.

Farrokh Shokooh has all the trappings of success. The Irvine electrical consulting firm he owns is doing well. A graduate of Louisiana State University, Shokooh has an engaging personality and lives comfortably in Mission Viejo with his wife and 2 1/2-year-old daughter. His extended family also lives in Southern California.

But many times, Shokooh, 39, doesn’t fall asleep that quickly at night. Many times, when he’s driving, his mind wanders and he finds it hard to concentrate.

“All these things you hear in the news are really depressing,” Shokooh said. “Anytime I hear in the news about terrorists, pro-Iranian terrorists, that really gets me right into the heart. It’s not worded ‘pro-Khomeini’ terrorists. That’s probably the way it should be said. If it could come out and distinguish between the existing government and Iranians, that would be a step in the right direction.”

Although reliable, up-to-date numbers are hard to find, all experts agree that most Iranians who fled the revolution settled in Southern California, where the climate and easygoing life style most resembled that of their homeland. Iranian leaders in Orange County put their numbers in excess of 50,000, a number hard to verify but which some county officials don’t find unreasonable.

“The Iranian community has been a relatively silent community,” said Robin Blackwell, coordinator for the Orange County Coalition for Immigration Rights. “It’s a more well-educated, affluent group. We don’t encounter their problems. When there are discrimination problems, the few times it’s happened, they’ve settled out of court. They don’t want to make a big deal out of it. They don’t want to stir up negativity, because there is some intense negativity toward Iranians.”

Those feelings have been reinforced, sometimes for days on end, through television and newspaper reporting of the continuing Iran-Iraq war and the link between the Khomeini government and international terrorism. The net result has been that, to many Americans, Iran has become the International Bad Guy of the 1980s.

Partly for that reason, but also because of what many say is a natural gregariousness, Iranians have assimilated--some would say quietly dissolved--into Orange County culture.

Blackwell said the county has a 1 1/2-inch-thick book on service organizations for its diverse ethnic populations. “There’s not one single one in here dealing with Iranians,” she said. “I think that’s very indicative of the alienation and fear, (and) that they’re trying to assimilate into the (American) culture. . . . It’s really tragic, because theirs is a beautiful culture.”

It’s pride that keeps Iranians from availing themselves of public help, said Doris Ahadpour, born in Bellflower and married for 19 years to Iranian businessman Ferydoun Ahadpour, owner of the Huntington Harbour Bay and Racquet Club. Doris Ahadpour lived in Iran for 10 years before the family moved to America in 1976.

“They have unbelievable pride,” she said. “I’ve seen many families who are just destitute in some ways, but they wouldn’t let their own families know how bad their situation is. They’ll put up a great front.”

The Iranian city the Ahadpours lived in was destroyed by the Iraqis, but Iranians’ problems in America go even beyond such traumatic memories, she said. “It’s not just because of what’s going on in the country; it’s just because of the culture. They really can never fully accept the American way of life. There’s not that closeness. Everybody’s doing their own thing and no one seems to have the caring feeling that they do in Iran.”

While Americans can be hospitable, in Iran it is almost a sacred duty. “I lived in a house in Newport Beach for 12 years in which I might have spoken to my next-door neighbors twice in 12 years,” she said. “I barely knew their names. I hardly ever saw them. In Iran, the neighbors would have come over the first day and been like family.”

Shokooh, the electrical consultant who also teaches part time at UC Irvine, hasn’t had the same adjustment problems because he has been in America since 1967. While acknowledging that Iranians have a history of intermingling with Western cultures, he offered another explanation for the willingness of Iranians to try to assimilate into American society.

“One reason I don’t shy away from Americans is that I can educate them as far as their general attitude toward Iran,” he said. “By socializing with other groups, I can make them understand there are no hard feelings between Iranians and Americans.”

In Los Angeles, a magazine advertising various Iranian businesses ran an editorial entitled “New Accusation Against Islamic Republic of Iran and the Necessity of Unity Among Iranians Abroad.” The editorial dealt with the possible complicity of Iran in the recent hijacking of a Kuwaiti jet and said, in part: “Iranians abroad must do their best to show the world community that they are not supporters of those controlling their homeland. They strongly condemn all terrorist activities like hijacking and creating a nightmare for innocent passengers. . . . Iranians abroad must try as much as possible to introduce their rich cultural heritage to the world. They must show their pride in the ancient civilization of Iran and its honorable national history.”

Shokooh said he has never experienced any anti-Iranian bias, despite countless business dealings throughout the county. Still, three years ago he helped set up an organization “to improve business conditions” for Iranians in the county. The group has about 120 members, roughly 80% of whom own businesses, he said.

“I don’t feel like when I’m in these meetings, I’ve ever felt discriminated against,” he said. “Because everything is so technical, people don’t think about politics at the time. But there are Iranians who might have that problem, and I don’t blame them because when you hear on the news . . . all the bad publicity coming out, you feel like, ‘Well, what are people going to think?’ ”

Even so, Shokooh conceded, the events in the Middle East pervade an Iranian’s life in America. “It really makes it impossible to be happy right now,” said Shokooh. “If that situation (in Iran) gets settled and goes away, I could have a very happy life now. . . . Overall, I think people are happy here, but they’re still concerned.”

Nader Nowparast is a Newport Beach psychologist who came to America in 1954. “Some of those who abruptly left their home country and arrived in the U.S., they have psychological and adjustment problems,” he said. “In my profession, I see a lot of them.”

The overriding problem, Nowparast said, isn’t adjustment to America but “anxiety over their country--not with the Islamic republic, not with religion, but the land, the country, the homeland.”

Typical symptoms, he said, are depression and anxiety and attendant eating and sleeping disorders. “They seem nostalgic and since the Iran-Iraq war, they’re always in constant anxiety and under constant stress and pressure as to what’s happening to their parents, sisters and brothers (still in Iran). During the last month, because of the elevation of the war, no one has been able to reach their families in Tehran by phone. People are becoming depressed and worried. That’s natural.

“In addition, some of these people who came during the last decade or so haven’t been able to adjust to American culture and values and mores and life style because they were not socialized or acculturated, even in a conceptual way, about the American way of life.”

Women have an especially difficult time, Doris Ahadpour said. “It’s incredible how women can’t seem to adjust; 99% of the women would prefer to go back (if Khomeini weren’t in power), although they have the greatest of life styles here, as far as material things go.”

The biggest problem for Iranian women, she said, is the absence of socializing that was so much a part of their lives. While, typically, their husbands are working in America as they were in Iran, the wives have undergone the biggest transition.

“In Iran, women are much more powerful than in the Arab world,” she said. “It’s very sublime. It’s not shown and not admitted and no man would admit that his wife had any power over him whatsoever, but women in Iran are extremely powerful underneath. They have an underlying influence over their husbands and families, and they’re more or less put on a pedestal.”

Somewhere in the trip across the continents, that feeling got lost on the way to America, she said. Men are under a different kind of pressure in America, and Iranian wives have found their roles have changed. “It just isn’t the same for them,” she lamented.

Fariba Yazdanian came to America in 1979 with her husband, Saeed, and their son, Arash, now 11. An older sister had preceded the family to Orange County, but Fariba left her parents in Iran. “For me, it is very difficult to stay here,” she said in the living room of her Irvine home. “We have a happy life but I worry about my parents.”

Another ongoing problem is the Khomeini regime’s persecution of the Bahai faith, of which the Yazdanians are members. “A lot of my community is over there, the Bahai people are suffering and they have a lot of problems,” she said. “And we can’t do anything for them.” As a result, Fariba Yazdanian said, she would return to Iran if she could.

Perhaps more so than other ethnic groups, Iranians appear concerned about how Americans view them. Many Iranians interviewed made it a point to note the high number of trained professionals who are “contributing” to American life. Others, however, believe that that perpetuates a stereotype that overlooks significant human suffering.

“I think it’s the media that has portrayed Iranians as disgustingly rich, which is not true,” said Babak Sotoodeh, a Santa Ana attorney who specializes in business and immigration law. “Some of them have taken money out of Iran before the revolution, or have money in banks or property in Iran, but the majority that ran away didn’t bring any cash or capital with them. True, a lot of them are professionals. . . . How many Iranian doctors, how many other professionals, engineers are contributing to (the) U.S. community? If you take Vietnamese or Cubans, if you take other nationalities, you’d notice the difference.

“But the problem is people look at superficial materialism,” he said. “They don’t look at what’s under the appearance. They see rich people driving BMWs, getting a lot of exposure because they go to discos, drive in ritzy cars and wear ritzy clothes. But I have been exposed to the other side of the coin, which is people who ran away from Iran, dirt-poor. Maybe they were somebody in Iran, but they had to leave everything to run away from persecution. That is the price of freedom.”

The driver walked over to the mechanic and asked if he would check out a fuel leak underneath the hood and run a smog check on his car. The mechanic said he would, shortly.

When the customer walked away, the mechanic, an Iranian who wants to be identified only as Joe, said humbly, “For your information, I must tell you, I have a master’s degree in electronics. I am a pilot. I have mechanic experience. But I am not in a right way. I studied almost 18 years, but my knowledge is not being used.”

The man, who said he was a pilot in the Shah’s armed forces, came to America four years ago, eventually getting a job as an auto mechanic in a Huntington Beach service station. A few months ago, his wife and two children joined him. “This job I can survive at, but it’s not my favorite,” he said. “I have to work 15 to 16 hours a day to make money for my family. But this is my personal idea--I don’t care. I have to make money to live. I’m not worried about anything else. I know this job is not at the same level (as his training), but I not do a bad job. I not like some people, who go out and steal to make money.”

What hurts him, he said, are not things said directly but his perceptions about Americans’ feelings toward Iranians. “The other day a dog was killed in the street. They blocked off (the lane) and stopped traffic to clean it up. Thousands are dying in the war in Iran. I heard nothing about it on the news. Nothing. How do you think that makes us feel? Are we less than dogs? That bothers me.”

When he lived in Tehran, he said, “I had over 200 American friends in Iran. They called Iran their second home.”

Today, he said, he has made few friends. “As far as some Americans go, they treat me right, but they ignore me. But it’s not people’s fault--they don’t know me.”

In Tehran before the revolution, he said, Americans and Iranians worked closely together. “Over there, we had time to visit and talk. I do my best for America. That was my duty, I believed. If you come to my country and don’t know how to live, I will help you. Unfortunately, over here, you have a bad expression: ‘We don’t care; not my problem.’ ”

That sense that they are viewed as outcasts haunts the existence of many Iranians in America, said Hamid Shojai, pastor of a small Christian church in Orange for Iranians.

“Iran has 2,500 years’ history of great kingdoms,” Shojai said. “The people of Iran have always been proud of what they were in history. . . . They’ve always been proud of their country, they’re always well spoken of. Here they are, the same people, they’ve come to the U.S., to a country they always felt was the closest friend to Iran, and some of them are being treated like bums in the streets. People say, ‘Oh, they have to stay away from them, this guy is Iranian,’ and he gets a dirty look. That has taxed their emotions, because that’s not what they are. They have a great history and they have been hurt by the reaction of the world, because the world has judged Iran by their government. That has been really killing to most of them.”

Shokooh said Iranians in Orange County probably aren’t “as tight as other (ethnic) groups are. We’re more into socializing with Americans as well as other nationalities. But I think we’re still keeping close ties between us. At no time could I sit down and really have the same understanding of Omar Khayyam as I could with an Iranian friend. You just have to master the language and the culture before you could really sit down and understand it together.”

Shokooh remembers his mother offering him, as a boy, the equivalent of a dime for every 10 lines of Persian poetry he could remember. And while he speaks Farsi to his young daughter around the house, he openly questions whether he will be as motivated as his mother to imbue her with Iranian culture.

“But if the situation (in Iran) changes tomorrow, I don’t think you’ll see people packing up and leaving (Orange County), although a lot of them like to say they would do that. But that won’t happen.”

Although many people left Iran with a lot of money, many others did not, he said. “For them to just leave everything and come here, and now that they’ve been here a few years, and have a house and family, to leave everything behind and go back, it would be hard to do that again.”

Meanwhile, Iranians apparently will have to draw strength from one another as they continue their adjustment to Western life.

Joe, the service station attendant, lamented about what he said was his biggest problem: “I’m not established. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what’s going to happen. If I was 12, 15 years old, yeah, I try to settle and do my best. Now, I don’t know. How long should I be here. What should I do? Big problem.”