“Assimulation” in the Land of Ten-Thousand Iranian Communities
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“Assimulation” in the Land of Ten-Thousand Iranian Communities: Public Assimilation Strategies, Private Preservation Identities A Dissertation SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA BY Tracy Jo Zank IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY/ANTHROPOLOGY Dr. William O. Beeman September 2016 © Tracy Jo Zank 2016 i Acknowledgements With heartfelt thanks to my committee and friends in the Anthropology Department at the University of Minnesota, who have been instrumental in the fruition of this endeavor. William O. Beeman My advisor, who made, and makes things happen. Your arrival at the Anthropology Department was a serendipitous pearl in my string of Iranian-related bonds. The combined pure-applied anthropological approach you brought to the Department has been indispensable in expanding opportunities for “non-traditional” anthropology students. Your support in this capacity is remarkable. Hail to your creative spirit! David Valentine Amazing “cheerleader-chair,” whose inquiries, e-mails, concerns, support, and follow-up helped me to keep my head together as well as atop my body. Three cheers! David Lipset A solid rock in the river’s endless flow. Your persistent, unspoken confidence in me has provided an essential backdrop since I embarked on this journey. Iraj Bashiri Willing “outsider,” who served as a critical “insider” and eye in the reading of my dissertation. Support Staff With appreciation for help in tying up the loose ends, and ii lending an ear when stress levels were at a peak: Marge, Terri, Marjorie, Kara, Nicole, the student workers, and others whom I have missed inadvertently. My “Anthro-Peeps” For embracing, rather than alienating, the “grandmother” in their midst. Through many a happy hours and TA grumblings, your friendship and moral support have been essential to seeing me through this process. Family and Friends For your patience and understanding during this seemingly unending, long strange trip with “Sergio.” And to my “extra parents,” Robert J. and Beatrice Diamond Miller (of blessed memory), who in anthropological fashion, adopted me as their “extra daughter.” Bob and Bea, you are missed, but your inspiration lives on in this thesis. iii Dedication To my Iranian friends and family for their loyalty, laughter, hospitality, and trust. In solidarity, I am hopeful that Americans can (re)learn to embrace Iranians. Through the eyes of innocence, my niece Katja (of blessed memory) (1999-2004) once posed a profound question: “Aunt Tracy, am I Iranian?” Katja heard me talk about my Iranian friends, and she loved to ate chelo kebab from the Caspian Bistro when I visited her in the hospital. Katja, yes, when we imagine ourselves as “others,” we approximate a more humane world. iv Abstract Early research on Iranians in the global diaspora has demonstrated specific contexts in which Iranians express transnational identity. Much of this research presents and configures “the community” as a harmonious whole through narrow frames of reference, such as ethnic institutions, economic enclaves, majority-minority assessment based on discrimination and prejudice, and inter-generational and gender change. This study addresses the Twin Cities’ Iranian community as a dynamic, dispersed body of relationships and interactions characterized by an institutional fission-fusion pattern with consequences for ethnic group consciousness and individual identification with and expression of Iranianness. I employ a national and gender identity approach to underscore how Iran’s vacillating political history has crafted modern Iranian men and women, first, in alignment with the West, and then along Islamic ideals. Community, consequently, expands and contracts according to global, micro-macro occurrences. A waning sense of identity incites a centripetal “fusion phase” of institutional life, uniting Iranians through the public celebration of pre-Islamic heritage, privately with extended family, and attempts to teach Persian, a critical tool to navigate the complexities of communication in a hierarchal culture. Paradoxically, the “fusion phase” presents obstacles in intra-cultural interaction, leading to a “fission effect.” Fissioning eludes national camaraderie and community involvement as individuals assess each other’s location in the social hierarchy. The analysis of these identity patterns has been explained using transnational approaches with an emphasis on associations forged in power-vying activities aimed to displace authority and reconfigure national narratives. v This dissertation explores these social dynamics in the context of the centripetal fusion and centrifugal fission pattern to explain how Twin Cities’ Iranians cultivate community, despite geographic dispersal, through a shared, intimate micro-history forged in a portable ideology that displaces monolithic assumptions of tradition, identity, and belonging. Keywords: Transnational identity, Gender, Diasporic Iranians, Community, Immigration, Assimilation vi Table of Contents Acknowledgements ……………………………………………………………... i Dedications ……………………………………………………………………… ii Abstract …………………………………………………………………………. iv Chapter I ………………………………………………………………………… 1 Chapter II ……………………………………………………………………….. 64 Chapter III ………………………………………………………………………. 190 Chapter IV ………………………………………………………………………. 262 Chapter V ……………………………………………………………………….. 307 Chapter VI ………………………………………………………………………. 448 Chapter VII ……………………………………………………………………… 492 Bibliography ……………………………………………………………………... 509 Endnotes …………………………………………………………………………. 541 1 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Research Problem, Question, and Objectives The Iranian community in the “Land of Ten-Thousand Lakes” (Minnesota’s moniker) is characterized by an institutional fission-fusion pattern with consequences for ethnic group consciousness and the individual’s identification with and expression of Iranianness. The “fusion phase” of institutional life unites Iranians in the celebration of pre-Islamic (Zoroastrian) heritage in the public context of community gatherings, private familial-friendship settings, and educational attempts to teach Persian, a critical tool to navigate the complexities of communication within a hierarchal culture. Paradoxically, in the “fusion phase” of institutional life, obstacles manifest when engaging with other Iranians, including but not limited to: political infighting, criticism, self-interest, gossip, suspicion, and differences relative to one’s position within the hierarchy (e.g., class, education, time of arrival). The pursuit of “making community,” therefore, incites a “fission effect” that repels individuals from community involvement. Fissioning is intensified by a geographically diffuse settlement pattern in familial-friendship “proximate pockets” located in wealthy suburban and exurban areas. Furthermore, centrifugal forces of discrimination and prejudice vis-à-vis interaction with Minnesotans impede identification with and presentation of national identity in the American public sphere, and raise questions of belonging. The ebb and flow of involvement in community life and covert prejudice intersect with one’s personal assessment of and identification 2 with Iranianness to reveal an unyielding yet slippery grasp of essential inheritances, particularly a command of Persian, celebration of Zoroastrian heritage, and performance of ta’arof or ritual courtesies. “Assimulation” is a strategy of translation, whereby favored features of American culture are performed successfully in the public sphere, while the preservation of Iranian cultural attributes is selectively, but steadfastly, celebrated in the private sphere. Through translation, the “assimulationist” interrogates and contests “authentic” culture, and thereby enunciates difference by integrating past with present. Rather than an inclination to fake it, “assimulation” is an approach to command control of inter- and intra-relations in the public sphere by exemplifying an ethos of integrity that contradicts the host society’s negative assessment of Iranians as well as competes within the hierarchy of native niceties and finesses. The ongoing host- native and native-native public sphere interactions formulates an ambivalent “third space” (Bhabha 1994, 1996; Rutherford 1990) within which alternative structures of received wisdom generate new positions, displace histories, restructure authority, and alter political initiatives. The negotiation of demands, wills, and meanings by the “assimulationist” redefines codes of meaning and systems of authority around which community gathers. Community then, is a symbolic ingathering of ephemerally-related individuals whose willed relations represent a need to define themselves relative to each other, but in contrast to “the others” from whom they have fissioned. The purpose of community assumes the “assimulationist’s” need to not only better the argument of representative authority, but “out do” those who make the claims. 3 Within the context of the centrifugal and centripetal forces that establishes the fission-fusion pattern, the question I pursue is: Despite the propensity for institutional dissolution, how and why do Iranians in the Twin Cities persevere in the creation of community? In addressing my research question, several claims are presented. Firstly, I contend that while the inheritance of a traditional upbringing in an extended family network enmeshes individuals within a rigid, authoritative structure (i.e., patriarchal and/or parental “interference” in matchmaking, marriage,