Iranian Americans are United States citizens or nationals who are of Iranian ancestry or who hold Iranian citizenship. Iranian Americans are among the most highly educated people in the United States. They have historically excelled in business, academia, science, the arts, and entertainment. Most Iranian Americans arrived in the United States after 1979, as a result of the

Iranian Revolution The Iranian Revolution ( fa, انقلاب ایران, Enqelâb-e Irân, ), also known as the Islamic Revolution ( fa, انقلاب اسلامی, Enqelâb-e Eslâmī), was a series of events that culminated in the overthrow of the Pahlavi dynas ...

and the fall of the

Persian monarchy Iranian monarchism is the advocacy of restoring the monarchy in Iran, which was abolished after the 1979 Revolution. Historical background Iran first became a constitutional monarchy in 1906, but underwent a period of autocracy during the year ...

, with over 40% settling in California, specifically Los Angeles. Unable to return to Iran, they have created many distinct ethnic enclaves, such as the Los Angeles Tehrangeles community. The Iranian American community has become successful, with many becoming doctors, engineers, lawyers, and tech entrepreneurs. Based on a 2012 announcement by the National Organization for Civil Registration, an organization of the

Ministry of Interior of Iran The Ministry of Interior ( fa, وزارت کشور, ''Vâzart-e Kâshvar'') of the Islamic Republic of Iran is in charge of performing, supervising and reporting elections, policing, and other responsibilities related to an interior ministry. D ...

, the United States has the highest number of Iranians outside the country. In 2021 the

Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Iran The Ministry of Foreign Affairs ( fa, وزارت امور خارجه, Vezārat-e Omūr-e Khārejeh) is an Iranian government ministry headed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, who is a member of cabinet. The current Minister of Foreign Affairs ...

published new statistics showing that 1,500,000 Iranians who were born in Iran are living in the U.S. according to the most recent data. However this number only represents Iranian born population who moved to the U.S. at some point and does not include the number of U.S.-born Iranians and other groups with Iranian ancestors.

Terminology

Iranian-American is sometimes used interchangeably with Persian-American, partly due to the fact that, in the Western world, Iran was known as "Persia." On the Nowruz of 1935, Reza Shah Pahlavi asked foreign delegates to use the term Iran, the

endonym An endonym (from Greek: , 'inner' + , 'name'; also known as autonym) is a common, ''native'' name for a geographical place, group of people, individual person, language or dialect, meaning that it is used inside that particular place, group, ...

of the country used since the

Sasanian Empire The Sasanian () or Sassanid Empire, officially known as the Empire of Iranians (, ) and also referred to by historians as the Neo-Persian Empire, was the History of Iran, last Iranian empire before the early Muslim conquests of the 7th-8th cen ...

, in formal correspondence. Since then the use of the word "Iran" has become more common in the Western countries. This also changed the usage of the terms for Iranian nationality, and the common adjective for citizens of Iran changed from "Persian" to "Iranian." In 1959, the government of

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi , title = Shahanshah Aryamehr Bozorg Arteshtaran , image = File:Shah_fullsize.jpg , caption = Shah in 1973 , succession = Shah of Iran , reign = 16 September 1941 – 11 February 1979 , coronation = 26 October ...

, Reza Shah Pahlavi's son, announced that both "Persia" and "Iran" could officially be used interchangeably.Yarshater, Ehsa
Persia or Iran, Persian or Farsi
, ''Iranian Studies'', vol. XXII no. 1 (1989) The issue is still debated today. Majd, Hooman, ''The Ayatollah Begs to Differ: The Paradox of Modern Iran'', by Hooman Majd, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 23 September 2008, , 9780385528429. p
161
/ref> There is a tendency among Iranian-Americans to categorize themselves as "Persian" rather than "Iranian", mainly to dissociate themselves from the negative stereotypes of Iranians in media. Some Iranian-Americans also don't prefer "Iranian" to disassociate themselves with the Islamic Republic of Iran, yet this rationale has been criticized as the term "Iran" was widely used before 1979 as well. The term "Iranian" is regarded as more inclusive than "Persian", as the term "Persian" excludes non-Persian ethnic minorities of Iran. While the majority of Iranian-Americans come from Persian backgrounds, there is a significant number of non-Persian Iranians such as Azeris and Kurds within the Iranian-American community, leading some scholars to believe that the label "Iranian" is more inclusive, since the label "Persian" excludes non-Persian minorities.

History

Early history

One of the first recorded Iranians to visit

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

was Martin the Armenian, an Iranian-Armenian tobacco grower who settled in

Jamestown, Virginia The Jamestown settlement in the Colony of Virginia was the first permanent English settlement in the Americas. It was located on the northeast bank of the James (Powhatan) River about southwest of the center of modern Williamsburg. It was ...

in 1618. Mirza Mohammad Ali, also known as Hajj Sayyah, was an Iranian who came to North America in the 1800s. He was inspired to travel around the world due to the contradiction between the democratic ideals he read about and how his fellow Iranians were treated by their leaders. He began his travels as a 23-year-old looking for knowledge, to experience the lives of others, and to use that knowledge to help with Iran's progress. His stay in the United States lasted 10 years, and he traveled across the country from New York to San Francisco. He met a variety of influential American figures including President Ulysses S. Grant, who met with him on several occasions. On 26 May 1875, Hajj Sayyah became the first Iranian to become an American Citizen. He was imprisoned upon his return to Iran for taking a stand against living conditions there. He looked to the United States to protect him but to no avail. During the peak period of worldwide emigration to the United States (1842–1903), only 130 Iranian nationals were known to have immigrated.

First phase of emigration

The first wave of Iranian migration to the United States occurred from the late 1940s to 1977, or 1979. The United States was an attractive destination for students, as American universities offered some of the best programs in engineering and other fields, and were eager to attract students from foreign countries. Iranian students, most of whom had learned English as a second language in Iran, were highly desirable as new students at colleges and universities in the United States. By the mid-1970s, nearly half of all Iranian students who studied abroad did so in the United States. By 1975, the Institute of International Education's annual foreign student census figures listed Iranian students as the largest group of foreign students in the United States, amounting to a total of 9% of all foreign students in the country. As the Iranian economy continued to rise steadily in the 70s, it enabled many more Iranians to travel abroad freely. Consequently, the number of Iranian visitors to the United States also increased considerably, from 35,088, in 1975, to 98,018, in 1977. During the 1977–78 academic year, of about 100,000 Iranian students abroad, 36,220 were enrolled in American institutions of higher learning. During the 1978–79 academic year, on the eve of the revolution, the number of Iranian students enrolled in American institutions rose to 45,340, and in 1979–80, that number reached a peak of 51,310. At that time, according to the Institute of International Education, more students from Iran were enrolled in American universities than from any other foreign country. The pattern of Iranian migration during this phase usually only involved individuals, not whole families. Due to Iran's increasing demand for educated workers in the years before the revolution, the majority of the Iranian students in America intended to return home after graduation to work, especially those who had received financial aid from the Iranian government or from industry on condition of returning to take jobs upon graduation. Due to the drastic events of the

1979 Revolution The Iranian Revolution ( fa, انقلاب ایران, Enqelâb-e Irân, ), also known as the Islamic Revolution ( fa, انقلاب اسلامی, Enqelâb-e Eslâmī), was a series of events that culminated in the overthrow of the Pahlavi dynas ...

, the students ended up staying in the United States as refugees. These several thousand visitors and students unintentionally became the basis of the cultural, economic, and social networks that would enable large-scale immigration in the years that followed.

Second phase

The second phase of Iranian migration began immediately before and after the

of 1979 and the overthrow of the Shah

, and became significant in the early 1980s. As Ronald H. Bayor writes, "The 1979 Revolution and the 1980–88 war with Iraq transformed Iran's class structure, politically, socially, and economically." The revolution drastically changed the pattern and nature of Iranian emigration to the United States, while the Iran-Iraq War that ensued afterwards was also another factor that forced many of the best-educated and most wealthy families into exile in the United States and other countries. Once basically an issue of brain drain during the Pahlavi period, it was now predominantly an involuntary emigration of a relatively large number of middle- and upper-class families, including the movement of a considerable amount of wealth. During and after the revolution, most students did not return to Iran, and those who did were gradually purged from the newly established

Islamic Republic The term Islamic republic has been used in different ways. Some Muslim religious leaders have used it as the name for a theoretical form of Islamic theocratic government enforcing sharia, or laws compatible with sharia. The term has also been u ...

. Many students who graduated abroad after the revolution also did not return, due to the ruling clergy's repression. As a result, the educated elite who left Iran after the revolution, and the new graduates in the United States who chose not to return home, created a large pool of highly educated and skilled Iranian professionals in the United States. By 2002, an estimated 1.5 to 2.5 million Iranians lived abroad, mainly in North America and Europe, due to the Islamic government's authoritarian practices.Torbat, Akbar E (Spring 2002). "The brain drain from Iran to the United States". ''Middle East Journal'' 56 (2): 272–295. A further notable aspect of the migration in this phase is that members of religious and ethnic minorities were starting to become disproportionally represented among the Iranian American community, most notably Baháʼís, Jews, Armenians, and Assyrians. According to the

1980 US Census The United States census of 1980, conducted by the Census Bureau, determined the resident population of the United States to be 226,545,805, an increase of 11.4 percent over the 203,184,772 persons enumerated during the 1970 census. It was t ...

, there were 123,000 Americans of Iranian ancestry at that time. Between 1980 and 1990, the number of foreign-born people from Iran in the United States increased by 74 percent. The revolution caused a drastic change in the Iranian culture. Iran was no longer a thriving country. This is part of the reason so many Iranians began to flee to America.

Contemporary period

Max Amini Persian American Stand Up Comedian 2015

The third phase of Iranian immigration started in 1995 and continues to the present. According to the

2000 US Census The United States census of 2000, conducted by the Census Bureau, determined the resident population of the United States on April 1, 2000, to be 281,421,906, an increase of 13.2 percent over the 248,709,873 people enumerated during the 1990 cen ...

, there were 283,225 Iranian-born people in the US. According to the same 2000 US Census, there were 385,488 Americans of Iranian ancestry at that time. The 2011

American Community Survey The American Community Survey (ACS) is a demographics survey program conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. It regularly gathers information previously contained only in the long form of the decennial census, such as ancestry, citizenship, educati ...

(ACS) estimate found 470,341 Americans with full or partial Iranian ancestry. However, most experts believe that this is a problem of underrepresenting due to the fact that "many community members have been reluctant in identifying themselves as such because of the problems between Iran and the United States in the past two decades." and also because many were ethnic minorities (Jewish, Armenian, and Assyrian Iranians) who instead identify as the ethnic group they are part of rather than as Iranians.Bahareh H. Lampert. ''Voices of New American Women: Visions of Home in the Middle Eastern Diasporic Imagination'' page 50, 2008. Estimates of 1,000,000 and above are given by many Iranian and non-Iranian organizations, media, and scholars. Kenneth Katzman, specialist in Middle Eastern affairs and part of the Congressional Research Service, in December 2015 estimated the number at over 1,000,000. Paul Harvey and Edward Blum of the University of Colorado and the

University of San Diego The University of San Diego (USD) is a private Roman Catholic research university in San Diego, California. Chartered in July 1949 as the independent San Diego College for Women and San Diego University (comprising the College for Men and Schoo ...

in 2012 estimated their number at 1,000,000,Paul Harvey, Edward Blum. ''The Columbia Guide to Religion in American History'' page 368. Columbia University Press, 14 February 2012. as well as

Al-Jazeera Al Jazeera ( ar, الجزيرة, translit-std=DIN, translit=al-jazīrah, , "The Island") is a state-owned Arabic-language international radio and TV broadcaster of Qatar. It is based in Doha and operated by the media conglomerate Al Jazeera ...

. According to the

PAAIA The Public Affairs Alliance of Iranian Americans, acronym : PAAIA ( fa, پایا, translit=Pāyā), Inc., is a nonpartisan, nonprofit, nonreligious membership organization that aims to "serve the domestic interests of Iranian Americans and represen ...

(Public Affairs Alliance of Iranian Americans), estimates range from 500,000 to 1,000,000, numbers backed up by Ronald H. Bayor of the

Georgia Institute of Technology The Georgia Institute of Technology, commonly referred to as Georgia Tech or, in the state of Georgia, as Tech or The Institute, is a public research university and institute of technology in Atlanta, Georgia. Established in 1885, it is part of ...

as well.Ronald H. Bayor. ''Multicultural America: An Encyclopedia of the Newest Americans'' ABC-CLIO, 2011 . page 1080 '' The Atlantic'' stated that there were an estimated 1,500,000 Iranians in the United States in 2012. The Iranian interest section in Washington, D.C., in 2003 claimed to hold passport information for approximately 900,000 Iranians in the US. Today, the United States contains the highest number of Iranians outside of Iran. The Iranian-American community has produced individuals notable in many fields, including medicine, engineering, and business.

Demographics

Although Iranians have lived in the United States in relatively small numbers since the 1930s, a large number of Iranian-Americans immigrated to the United States after the

of 1979. Data on this group is well documented by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). According to the

, there were 385,488 Americans of Iranian ancestry at that time. In the 2011 ACS, the number of Americans of full or partial Iranian ancestry amounted c. 470,341.

Population

Federal data on Iranian Americans in the

2010 United States Census The United States census of 2010 was the twenty-third United States national census. National Census Day, the reference day used for the census, was April 1, 2010. The census was taken via mail-in citizen self-reporting, with enumerators servin ...

was not according to race, but rather ancestry, which is collected by the annual

(ACS). Data on Iranian ancestry from the annual ACS is available on the Census Bureau's American Factfinder website. Racially, on the Census, Iranian Americans have been classified as a white American group. Most experts believe that the underrepresented number of Iranian Americans in the ACS is a problem due to the fact that "many community members have been reluctant in identifying themselves as such because of the problems between Iran and the United States in the past two decades." Estimations of 1,000,000 and above are given by many Iranian and non-Iranian organizations, media, and scholars. Kenneth Katzman, specialist in Middle Eastern affairs and part of the Congressional Research Service, estimated their number at over 1,000,000 in published December 2015. Historians Paul Harvey and Edward Blum estimate their number at 1,000,000 in 2012, as well as

. According to the

(Public Affairs Alliance of Iranian Americans), estimates range from 500,000 to 1,000,000, numbers backed by Ronald H. Bayor of the

. '' The Atlantic'', in 2012, stated that there are an estimated 1,500,000 Iranians in the United States. The Iranian interest section in Washington D.C., in 2003, claimed to hold passport information for approximately 900,000 Iranians in the US. According to research done by the Iranian Studies Group, an independent academic organization at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Iranian Americans are most likely far more numerous in the United States than census data indicate. The group estimates that the number of Iranian Americans may have topped 691,000 in 2004—more than twice the figure of 338,000 cited in the 2000 U.S. census. Roughly half of the nation's Iranians reside in the state of California alone. Other large communities include

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

/ New Jersey, which have 9.1% of the U.S.'s Iranian population, followed by Washington, D.C./ Maryland/ Virginia (8.3%) and Texas (6.7%).Iranian-Americans and the 2010 Census: Did We Shrink?
by Hossein Hosseini. Payvand.com. Approximately 6,000–10,000 Iranian Americans reside in the city of Chicago, while up to 30,000 reside in the Chicago metropolitan area. Some of this population is Iranian Assyrian. Kings Point, New York, a village in Great Neck, New York, is said to have the largest concentration of Iranians in the United States (nearly 30%). However, unlike the population in Los Angeles, the Great Neck population is almost exclusively Jewish. Nashville, Tennessee has the largest Kurdish population in the United States, with many of them coming from Iran.

Significant Persian population centers

= California

= It is widely believed that most Iranian-Americans in the United States are clustered in the large cities of California, namely Greater Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, San Diego, Sacramento, and Fresno. According to extrapolated U.S. Census data and other independent surveys done by Iranian-Americans themselves in 2009, there were an estimated one million Iranian-Americans living in the U.S., with the largest concentration—about 300,000 people—living in the greater Los Angeles area.''The Wall Street Journal''
Iran's Political Crisis Fuels Expatriates' Fears, Hopes
/ref> For this reason, the L.A. area, with its Iranian American residents, is sometimes referred to as " Tehrangeles", "Irangeles", or "Little Persia" among Iranian-Americans. In 1985, the Los Angeles Times estimated 200,000 Iranian Americans were living in California; and by 1991 the estimate jumped to 800,000, however the accuracy of these numbers could be debated due to a lack of data. In 1990, Los Angeles had a larger population of religious minorities than Muslims, who were the religious majority in Iran. Regarding Iranian-Americans of Armenian origin, the

put the number of Armenians living in Los Angeles at 52,400, of whom 71.9% were foreign born: 14.7% in Iran, 14.3% in the USSR, 11.5% in Lebanon, 9.7% in Turkey, 11.7% in other Middle Eastern countries (Egypt, Iraq, Israel, etc.), and the rest in other parts of the world. Beverly Hills,

Irvine Irvine may refer to: Places On Earth Antarctica *Irvine Glacier *Mount Irvine (Antarctica) Australia *Irvine Island *Mount Irvine, New South Wales Canada *Irvine, Alberta * Irvine Inlet, Nunavut United Kingdom *Irvine, North Ayrshire, Scotla ...

, and

Glendale Glendale is the anglicised version of the Gaelic Gleann Dail, which means ''valley of fertile, low-lying arable land''. It may refer to: Places Australia * Glendale, New South Wales ** Stockland Glendale, a shopping centre *Glendale, Queensland, ...

all have large communities of Iranian Americans (much of the Iranian population in Glendale being of Armenian descent); 26% of the total population of Beverly Hills is Iranian Jewish, making it the city's largest religious community.Universe: Total population more information 2006–2010 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates
. factfinder2.census.gov'' Los Angeles Times''
Irvine embraces diversity at the polls
9 November 2008. Iranian Americans have formed ethnic enclaves in many affluent neighborhoods mostly in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. In Los Angeles, Iranians were concentrated in Tarzana, West Hills, Hidden Hills, Woodland Hills, Beverly Hills, Calabasas, Brentwood, and Rancho Palos Verdes. Tarzana has the highest concentration of Iranians in Los Angeles County, according to the U.S. Census in 2000. Second generation Iranians located outside these concentrated cities showed high rates of marrying a non-Iranian and low literacy rates in Persian. In San Diego County, La Jolla is considered a Persian enclave. Westlake village also held a large Iranian population and was the first American city to have an Iranian American mayor Iraj Broomand.

=Texas

= Texas also has a large population of Iranian descent. And like California, Iranians in Texas are concentrated in the larger major cities of the state. Houston has the largest population of Iranians and Iranian expats, with an estimated 70,000 residents (50,000 in 1994), mainly due to the Texas Medical Center and the presence of large energy companies. Houston contains a Persian business district including shops and restaurants that has been dubbed "Little Persia" by the '' Houston Press''.Cook, Allison. "Touring Little Persia," '' Houston Press''. 15 September 1994. p
1
Retrieved on 12 May 2014.Fischer and Abedi, p
269
There are many Iranian ZoroastriansRustomji, p
249
and Baháʼís living there. Some of the more well known residents of the Houston area in the past or present are Jasmin Moghbeli,

Susan Roshan Susan Roshan ( fa, سوزان روشن) (born 23 September 1967) is an Iranian singer, who currently lives in California, United States. After the Iranian Revolution, she moved to the United States with her parents and brother at the age of t ...

, Shawn Daivari, Farinaz Koushanfar, and Kavon Hakimzadeh (captain of the

USS Harry Truman USS ''Harry S. Truman'' (CVN-75) is the eighth of the United States Navy, named after the 33rd President of the United States, Harry S. Truman. She is currently homeported at Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia. ''Harry S. Truman'' was launched ...

Naval aircraft carrier). Ibrahim Yazdi was a graduate of Baylor College of Medicine and

Kamal Kharazi Sayyid Kamal Kharazi ( fa, کمال خرازی, born 1 December 1944) is an Iranian reformist politician and diplomat who was the Minister of Foreign Affairs from 20 August 1997 to 24 August 2005 as appointed by President Mohammad Khatami servi ...

also is an alumnus of University of Houston. Hushang Ansary, an active philanthropist, has been a "founding benefactor" of the Houston Museum of Fine Arts. The George Bush Presidential Library has a gallery named after him. Iranians in Houston particularly came under the spotlight when Iranian student and activist Gelareh Bagherzadeh was murdered in Houston in 2012. The perpetrator,

Ali Irsan Ali Mahmood Awad Irsan ( ar, علي محمود عوض عرسان; born December 27, 1957
"

honor killing in retaliation against Bagherzadeh's encouragement of Irsan's daughter to leave Islam and marry a Christian man. The other notable Iranian in Texas that gained national attention in recent years was UT Austin's Omid Kokabee who was imprisoned in Iran for political reasons. The Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area is estimated to have over 30,000 Iranian-Americans. Iran's first astronaut Anousheh Ansari for many years was a resident of Plano, Texas, a suburb of Dallas-Fort Worth. Dallas' Iranian community was large and influential enough to host US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for a private visit in April 2019. And San Antonio and Austin each are said to have 3000-5000 Iranian American residents each, who are mostly attracted to large academic centers of excellence such as South Texas Medical Center and UT Austin or the climate of the

Texas Hill Country The Texas Hill Country is a geographic region of Central and South Texas, forming the southeast part of the Edwards Plateau. Given its location, climate, terrain, and vegetation, the Hill Country can be considered the border between the Ameri ...

area that is not un-similar to the southern Iran Zagros Mountains region. The largest concentration of Mandaeans from

Khuzestan Khuzestan Province (also spelled Xuzestan; fa, استان خوزستان ''Ostān-e Xūzestān'') is one of the 31 provinces of Iran. It is in the southwest of the country, bordering Iraq and the Persian Gulf. Its capital is Ahvaz and it covers ...

outside the middle east are settled in the San Antonio area. The Shah of Iran was also last hospitalized at San Antonio's

Wilford Hall Ambulatory Surgical Center Wilford Hall Ambulatory Surgical Center, formerly known as Wilford Hall Medical Center, is a U.S. Air Force medical treatment facility located on the grounds of San Antonio's Lackland Air Force Base. Operated by the 59th Medical Wing, Wilford Ha ...

in Lackland Air Force Base during his last days. This is the same base that trained many pilots of Iran's Royal Air Force before the 1979 revolution. File:4shanbeh jashn.jpg, Public party during Chaharshanbe Suri in San Antonio. File:Rooznameh Dallas.jpg, ''Shahrvand'' newsletter has been published in Dallas for over 20 years. File:Chelokababi san antonio.JPG, A popular Persian restaurant in southern Texas File:Kavon Hakimzadeh (1).jpg,

Kavon Hakimzadeh Kavon "Hak" Hakimzadeh (Persian: کاوون حکیم زاده) (born 1960s) is an Iranian-American rear admiral in the US Navy. From August 2021 of April 2022, he served as the director of aircraft carrier requirements in the office of the Chief ...

the captain of the

is a Texan by birth.

Religion

Many Iranian Americans are non-Muslim due to the religious composition of those fleeing the

, which included a disproportionate share of Iran's religious minorities, as well as subsequent ex-Muslim asylum seekers and other conversions away from Islam. Many Iranian Americans identify as

irreligious Irreligion or nonreligion is the absence or rejection of religion, or indifference to it. Irreligion takes many forms, ranging from the casual and unaware to full-fledged philosophies such as atheism and agnosticism, secular humanism and ant ...

or Shiite, but a full one-fifth are Christians, Jews, Baháʼís, or Zoroastrians. Additionally, there are also some Iranian Mandaeans, but they are very small in number. According to Pew Research, about 22% of those who left Islam in the United States are Iranian Americans. A 2012 national telephone survey of a sample of 400 Iranian-Americans, commissioned by the

Public Affairs Alliance of Iranian Americans The Public Affairs Alliance of Iranian Americans, acronym : PAAIA ( fa, پایا, translit=Pāyā), Inc., is a nonpartisan, nonprofit, nonreligious membership organization that aims to "serve the domestic interests of Iranian-American, Iranian Amer ...

and conducted by Zogby Research Services, asked the respondents what their religions were. The responses broke down as follows:

Muslim Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...

31%,

atheist Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no ...

/ realist/ humanist 11%,

agnostic Agnosticism is the view or belief that the existence of God, of the divine or the supernatural is unknown or unknowable. (page 56 in 1967 edition) Another definition provided is the view that "human reason is incapable of providing sufficient ...

8%, Baháʼí 7%, Jewish 5%, Protestant 5%, Roman Catholic 2%, Zoroastrian 2%, "Other" 15%, and "No response" 15%. The survey had a cooperation rate of 31.2%. The margin of error for the results was +/- 5 percentage points, with higher margins of error for sub-groups. Notably, the number of Muslims decreased from 42% in 2008 to 31% in 2012. According to Harvard University's Robert D. Putnam, the average Iranian is slightly less religious than the average American. In the book ''Social Movements in 20th Century Iran: Culture, Ideology, and Mobilizing Frameworks'', author Stephen C. Poulson adds that Western ideas are making Iranians

. There are religious and ethnolinguistic differences among the Muslim, Jewish, Baháʼí, Zoroastrian, Christian, Armenian,

Azerbaijani Azerbaijani may refer to: * Something of, or related to Azerbaijan * Azerbaijanis * Azerbaijani language See also * Azerbaijan (disambiguation) * Azeri (disambiguation) * Azerbaijani cuisine * Culture of Azerbaijan The culture of Azerbaijan ...

, Kurdish, and Assyrian groups. Calculating the percentage of

Christian Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι ...

Iranian-Americans is difficult because most Iranian Christians (especially those raised in the faith) are of Armenian or Assyrian origin; and, apart from identifying as Iranian, a number amongst them also strongly self-identifies as Armenian or Assyrian, rather than as (or apart from) Iranian.

Ethnicity

The majority of Iranian-Americans are ethnic Persians, with sizeable ethnic minorities being

Iranian Azerbaijanis Iranian Azerbaijanis (; az, ایران آذربایجانلیلاری, italics=no ), also known as Iranian Azeris, Iranian Turks, Persian Turks or Persian Azerbaijanis, are Iranians of Azerbaijani ethnicity who may speak the Azerbaijani lang ...

, Armenians, Iranian Jews, Kurds,

Assyrians Assyrian may refer to: * Assyrian people, the indigenous ethnic group of Mesopotamia. * Assyria, a major Mesopotamian kingdom and empire. ** Early Assyrian Period ** Old Assyrian Period ** Middle Assyrian Empire ** Neo-Assyrian Empire * Assyrian ...

, Mandaeans,

Turkmen Turkmen, Türkmen, Turkoman, or Turkman may refer to: Peoples Historical ethnonym * Turkoman (ethnonym), ethnonym used for the Oghuz Turks during the Middle Ages Ethnic groups * Turkmen in Anatolia and the Levant (Seljuk and Ottoman-Turkish desc ...

Baloch Baloch, also spelled Baloch, Beluch and in other ways, may refer to: * Baloch people, an ethnic group of Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan * Baluch, a small itinerant community of Afghanistan * Balouch, Azad Kashmir, a town in Pakistan * Baloch (s ...

, Arabs, among others. According to Hakimzadeh and Dixon in 2006, members of religious and ethnic minorities such as Baháʼís, Jews, Armenians, and Assyrians were disproportionately represented amongst the early exiles of the 1978–1979 revolution.

Citizenship

According to DHS, in 2015, 13,114 people born in Iran were issued green cards, while 13,298 were issued one in 2016. In 2015, 10,344 Iranians became naturalized, with a further 9,507 in 2016. Nearly all Iranians who reside in the United States are either

citizens Citizenship is a "relationship between an individual and a state to which the individual owes allegiance and in turn is entitled to its protection". Each state determines the conditions under which it will recognize persons as its citizens, and ...

(81%) or permanent residents (15%) of the United States (2008 survey). Iranian-Americans regard their culture and heritage as an important component of their day-to-day life and their overall identity within the United States.PAAIA Releases 2011 National Survey of Iranian Americans
Payvand.com (7 December 2011).

Integration

Four benchmarks are traditionally used to measure assimilation: language proficiency, intermarriage, spatial concentration, and socio-economic status. Per these criteria, one can determine with a significant degree of confidence that the Iranian-American community has made significant strides in successfully assimilating to a new culture and way of living. According to a survey commissioned by the

(PAAIA) in 2008, only 21 percent of Iranian-Americans reported interacting mostly with other Iranian Americans outside of their workplace, demonstrating that most of them have successfully integrated into United States society. The intermarriage rate is very high among Iranian Americans. It has been estimated that nearly 50 percent of Iranian-Americans who married between 1995 and 2007 married non-Iranian Americans. Research has furthermore indicated that Iranian-Americans who are Muslim are more open to intermarry than those who are members of religious or ethnic minorities, such as Jews and Armenians. Compared to men, Iranian women are less likely to mix or intermarry outside their group, which, according to the PAAIA, is likely because, as a group, they are more likely to adhere to traditional Iranian values, including making marriages that are approved by their families and are within Iranian cultural norms. Regarding language proficiency in the United States among its immigrant groups, the first generation principally speaks their native language, the second generation speaks both English and their parents' language, and the third generation typically speaks only English, while maintaining a knowledge of some isolated words and phrases from their ancestral tongue. The Iranian American community follows this pattern.

Community Outreach

Camp Ayandeh, sponsored annually by the Iranian Alliances Across Borders (IAAB), has attracted children of the Iranian diaspora from multiple nations with the intention of uniting Iranian youth following the mass migration after the fall of the Shah.

Education

According to Bayor, from the very beginning, Iranian immigrants differed from other arrivals in their high educational and professional achievements. According to Census 2000, 50.9 percent of Iranian immigrants have attained a bachelor's degree or higher, compared to a 28.0 percent national average. According to the latest census data available, more than one in four Iranian-Americans holds a master's or doctoral degree, the highest rate among 67 ethnic groups studied. A 1990 University of California, Los Angeles study showed that by virtue of education and occupation, native-born and Armenian-Americans of Iranian origin "tend to have the highest socioeconomic status... while those from Turkey have the lowest", although Turkish Armenians boast the highest rate of self-employment. In 1988, a '' New York Times'' article claimed that Middle Eastern Armenians, which includes Armenians from Iran, preferred to settle in

Glendale, California Glendale is a city in the San Fernando Valley and Verdugo Mountains regions of Los Angeles County, California, Los Angeles County, California, United States. At the 2020 United States Census, 2020 U.S. Census the population was 196,543, up from ...

, while Armenian immigrants from the Soviet Union were attracted to Hollywood, Los Angeles. A study regarding Americans of Armenian descent showed that Armenians from Iran (Iranian-Armenians) are known for quick integration into American society: for example, only 31% of Armenian Americans born in Iran claim not to speak English well, while those Armenians from other nations were shown to have less success at integrating.

Occupations and income

The Small Business Administration (SBA) conducted a study that found Iranian immigrants among the top 20 immigrant groups with the highest rate of business ownership, contributing substantially to the U.S. economy. According to the report, there were 33,570 active and contributing Iranian American business owners in the U.S., with a 21.5% business ownership rate. The study also found that the total net business income generated by Iranian Americans was $2.56 billion. Almost one in three Iranian-American households have annual incomes of more than $100,000 (compared to one in five for the overall U.S. population). Ali Mostasahri, a founding member of the Iranian Studies Group, offers a reason for the relative success of Iranian-Americans compared to other immigrants. He believes that, unlike many other immigrants who left their home countries because of economic hardships, Iranians left due to social or religious reasons like the 1979 revolution. About 50 percent of all working Iranian Americans are in professional and managerial occupations, a percentage greater than any other group in the United States (Bayor, 2011).

Physicians

The earliest Iranian people in the U.S. were mostly young trainees who worked as medical interns or residents. Some established themselves to continue practice beyond the residency stage. Their motives to extend their stay in the United States were more for professional than economic reasons. Researchers from Johns Hopkins University in 1974 reported, in the ''Journal of the American Medical Association'', that, in 1971, the number of Iranian physicians in the U.S. was 1,625. The authors further studied the causes for immigration by sending questionnaire to all Iranian MDs in the United States. According to the 660 respondents, the main reasons for migration were mandatory two-years' military service, low salaries as compared to the United States, expensive housing, and socio-political reasons. In 2013, another report was published, in the ''Archive of Iranian Medicine'' (AIM), saying that, post-revolution, the number of Iranian medical school graduates in the United States had grown to 5,045. Those who migrated to the U.S. after the 1979 revolution were mostly experienced physicians who came with their families and an intent to stay permanently. , there are 5,050 Iranian medical school graduates in the United States. Prior to the revolution, the 1,626 physicians migrated to the United States were 15% of all Iranian medical school graduates, while the 5,045 medical graduates who migrated post-Islamic Revolution represent only 5% of total Iranian medical graduates. This is not indicative of the entire United States, merely of the areas in which most of the Iranian-American population is concentrated.

Politics

Though Iranian-Americans have historically excelled in business, academia, and the sciences, they have traditionally shied away from participating in American politics or other civic activities. Iranian-Americans do not appear to engage in American politics, as demonstrated by survey results from large cities showing only 10 percent of them voted in the 2004 election. In Los Angeles, Iranian Americans paid for a billboard to inform thousands of travelers on the 405 freeway of how the Iranian regime had murdered ten thousand political prisoners. An August 2008 Zogby International poll, commissioned by the

, found that approximately one-half of Iranian Americans identified themselves as registered Democrats, in contrast to one in eight as

Republicans Republican can refer to: Political ideology * An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law. ** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...

and one in four as independents (2008). A 2019 Zogby International survey, commissioned by

, found that in the

2016 presidential election This national electoral calendar for 2016 lists the national/federal elections held in 2016 in all sovereign states and their dependent territories. By-elections are excluded, though national referendums are included. January *7 January: Kirib ...

, 56% of Iranian Americans respondents voted for Hillary Clinton, the democratic candidate. The survey also states that 69% of Iranian American respondents planned to vote for the democratic candidate in the

2020 election This national electoral calendar for 2020 lists the national/federal elections held in 2020 in all sovereign states and their dependent territories. By-elections are excluded, though national referendums are included. January *5 January: **Cro ...

. The same 2008

poll indicates that more than half of Iranian Americans cite domestic U.S. issues, including issues that are not unique to Iranian Americans, as the most important to them. In contrast, one quarter of Iranian Americans cite foreign policy issues involving Iran–U.S. relations and less than one-in-ten cite the internal affairs of Iran as being of greatest importance to them. More recently, the 2019 Zogby International survey, commissioned by the

, found that one-half of Iranian American respondents consider foreign policy most important when voting. This is a significant increase from the one quarter of Iranian Americans that reported foreign policy issues, such as the Iran-U.S. relationship, as important in 2008. Similarly, the 2019 survey also suggested that 75% of Iranian American respondents perceived the Trump Administration's Iranian foreign policy negatively. In 2017, the Trump administration put strict travel restrictions on travel to the United States from several countries, including Iran. The survey indicates that this

travel ban A travel ban is one of a variety of mobility restrictions imposed by governments. Bans can be universal or selective. The restrictions can be geographic, imposed by either the originating or destination jurisdiction. They can also be based on indiv ...

instituted by the Trump administration in 2017, received opposition from 76% of respondents. In contrast, only 16% of respondents supported the ban. The survey states that 70% of respondents have been personally affected by the travel ban, or had family and friends affected by the ban. From 1980 to 2004, more than one out of every four Iranian immigrants was a refugee or asylee. The

/Zogby poll cites that almost three-quarters of Iranian-Americans believe the promotion of human rights and democracy in Iran is the most important issue relating to Iran–U.S. relations. About the same percentage believe diplomacy is the foreign policy approach towards Iran that would be in the best interest of the United States. 84% support establishing a U.S. Interest Section in Iran. Nearly all Iranian Americans surveyed oppose any U.S. military attack against Iran.

Ties to Iran

According to a survey conducted in 2009, more than six in ten Iranian Americans have immediate family members in Iran, and almost three in ten communicate with their families or friends in Iran at least several times a week. An additional four in ten communicate with their families or friends in Iran at least several times a month. This study indicates an unusually close relationship between Iranian-Americans and Iranians. In the updated 2019

survey, 15% of Iranian American respondents reported contacting with friends and family in Iran daily, while 26% of respondents communicated with relatives in Iran several times a week. Additionally, 26% of Iranian American respondents contacted with family and friends in Iran several times a month, and 14% communicated with relatives in Iran several times a year. The survey also indicated that 74% of Iranian American respondents preferred contacting their relatives in Iran via phone calls, but communication over mobile communications apps and internet services had increased to 69% and 66% respectively. As of 2013, U.S. laws require U.S. persons to obtain a license from the U.S.

Office of Foreign Assets Control The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is a financial intelligence and enforcement agency of the U.S. Treasury Department. It administers and enforces economic and trade sanctions in support of U.S. national security and foreign policy ob ...

(OFAC) to engage in transactions related to the sale of their personal property in Iran. Similarly, US persons will need a license from OFAC to open a bank account or transfer money to Iran.

Travel to Iran

The U.S. government does not have diplomatic or consular relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran and therefore cannot provide protection or routine consular services to U.S. citizens in Iran. The Swiss government,

acting Acting is an activity in which a story is told by means of its enactment by an actor or actress who adopts a character—in theatre, television, film, radio, or any other medium that makes use of the mimetic mode. Acting involves a broad r ...

through its embassy in Tehran, serves as protecting power for U.S. interests in Iran. The Iranian government does not recognize dual citizenship and will not allow the Swiss to provide protective services for U.S. citizens who are also Iranian nationals. The Iranian authorities make the determination of a dual national's Iranian citizenship without regard to personal wishes. In 2016, the U.S.

Department of State The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other nati ...

warned U.S. citizens of the risks of travel to Iran. In some instances, foreigners, in particular dual nationals of Iran and Western countries including the United States, have been detained or prevented from leaving Iran.

Accomplishments

In Los Angeles, Persians have become the largest ethnic group in many Los Angeles' wealthiest enclaves including Bel Air, Beverly Hills, Tarzana, Encino, and Woodland Hills. The Iranian Revolution resulted in many Iranians fleeing to America in the late 1970s, where, forty years later, Iranian immigrants have become a major force in Silicon Valley as investors, executives, and creators. Iranians have been founders or senior executives at eBay,

Oracle An oracle is a person or agency considered to provide wise and insightful counsel or prophetic predictions, most notably including precognition of the future, inspired by deities. As such, it is a form of divination. Description The word '' ...

, Google, Dropbox, YouTube, Uber, Expedia, Twitter, and other major corporations. After surveying

Fortune 500 The ''Fortune'' 500 is an annual list compiled and published by ''Fortune'' magazine that ranks 500 of the largest United States corporations by total revenue for their respective fiscal years. The list includes publicly held companies, along ...

companies, researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology discovered that 50 Iranian-Americans held senior leadership positions at companies with more than $200 million in asset value. Iranians have the highest percentage of master's degrees than any other ethnic group in the United States. Iranians have also played a large role in the American education system with over 500 Iranian-American professors teaching at top-ranked U.S. universities which include Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Harvard University; Yale University; Princeton University; University of California, Berkeley; University of California, Los Angeles; and

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

. Iranian philanthropists constructed the

Freedom Sculpture ''The Freedom Sculpture'' or ''Freedom: A Shared Dream'', is a stainless steel, gold, and silver public art sculpture in Century City, Los Angeles, California, by artist and architect Cecil Balmond. Balmond applied both titles to this sculptur ...

in the

Century City Century City is a 176-acre (71.2 ha) neighborhood and business district in Los Angeles, California. Located on the Westside to the south of Santa Monica Boulevard around 10 miles (16 km) west of Downtown Los Angeles, Century City is one of ...

neighborhood, in honor of the Persian artifact Cyrus Cylinder.

Representation

Television

Early Iranian diaspora television has been credited with helping form the local community in the United States. As a result of the Iranian Revolution, the first Iranian American television was formed, and with its formation there were existing political factions that were carried over. The dominate voice in television during this time was from the royalist-support. It was argued by scholar

Hamid Naficy Hamid Naficy ( fa, حمید نفیسی; born 1944) is an Iranian-born American filmmaker, writer, scholar, and educator. He is the Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani Professor in Communication at Northwestern University in the department of Radio/Film/Te ...

, this was not due to political sponsorship, but rather due to market support. Up until 1992, most all Iranian American television programming was in the Farsi language with exceptions to Assyrian and Armenian languages (this included for Iranian-Kurdish and Azeri-specific shows in Farsi). Most all programming was non religious, and this was reflecting the population of more minority religions of Los Angeles. There are no reliable statistics on viewership because "Middle Eastern" and Iranian wasn't defined by rating services (such as

Nielsen Holdings Nielsen Holdings plc is an American information, data and market measurement firm. Nielsen operates in over 100 countries and employs approximately 44,000 people worldwide. The company was listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and use ...

), however the Los Angeles Times estimated by 1991 the Iranian American population was roughly 800,000 which would indicate the opening of a new share of the television viewing market. The Long Beach-based independent television station,

KSCI-TV KSCI (channel 18) is a television station licensed to Long Beach, California, United States, serving the Los Angeles area. Owned by WRNN-TV Associates, the station airs programming from ShopHQ. KSCI's studios are located on South Bundy Drive ...

dubbed themselves the "international station" and claimed to offer the most diverse ethnic television programming in the early 1980s, including the majority of Iranian American television during this time. Starting on March 15, 1981, the first Iranian diaspora television broadcast show IRTV (acronym for "Iranian television") was created by

Ali Limonadi Ali Limonadi (Persian language, Persian: علی لیمونادی) is an Iranian-born American film and television director, television producer, and journalist. He was the founder of IRTV (acronym for "Iranian television"; Persian language, Persia ...

in Los Angeles. Other early Iranian American television programs included Nadar Rafii's Midnight Show; Parviz Sayyad's Parsian TV (on KSCI-TV); Hamid Shabkhiz's Iran; and Manuchehr Bibian's (also known as Manouchehr Bibiyan) Jaam-e-Jam TV channel. Other notables in Iranian American television programs in the 1980s included Shohreh Aqdashlu's ''Sima va Nava-ye Iran TV''; Parviz Kardan's ''Shahr-e Farang TV''; and Hushang Towzi's multiple television series. In 2013,

BravoTV Bravo is an American basic cable television network, launched on December 8, 1980. It is owned by the NBCUniversal Television and Streaming division of Comcast's NBCUniversal through NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment. The channel originally focuse ...

launched '' Shahs of Sunset'' which followed a group of six Iranian American friends in Los Angeles who try to juggle their active social lives and careers while also balancing the demands of their families and traditions; the show was accused of racism and relaying on stereotypes in a petition.

Film

Iranian Americans have been the focus of

film documentaries A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in te ...

, including ''The Iranian Americans'' (2012; directed by Andrew Goldberg); and ''Immigration Stories: Iranian Americans of Silicon Valley'' (2021; directed by Nima Naimi, Alireza Sanayei, Julian Gigola). Critical response in the HuffPost of ''The Iranian Americans'' (2012) PBS documentary included a lack of representation for "interracial marriage". Fictional films with Iranian American themes include the satire '' Jimmy Vestvood: Amerikan Hero'' (2014; directed by Jonathan Kesselman), and '' Shirin in Love'' (2014; directed by Ramin Niami). The fictional drama '' Surviving Paradise'' (2001), is the first English-language Iranian film with theatrical release in the United States; the storyline is about two Iranian refugees in Los Angeles.

Education

The Center for Iranian Diaspora Studies at San Francisco State University, directed and chaired by Persis Karim, was founded in 2017 and was the first program specifically focused on Iranian diaspora (which includes Iranian Americans). The center offers grants, fellowships, and scholarships, as well as scholarly lecture series, research, and creative performances.

Discrimination

According to the

, nearly half of Iranian-Americans surveyed in 2008 by Zogby International have experienced or personally know Iranian Americans who have experienced discrimination due to their ethnicity, religion, or country of origin. The most common types of discrimination reported are airport security check,

social discrimination Discrimination is the act of making unjustified distinctions between people based on the groups, classes, or other categories to which they belong or are perceived to belong. People may be discriminated on the basis of Racial discrimination, r ...

, racial profiling, employment or business discrimination and discrimination at the hands of immigration officials. Iranians have been confused as Arabs by the media, government, and public. Iranians are known for their great pride in the Persian culture and language and according to the Orange County Register, "nothing annoys Iranian-Americans more than being mistaken for Arabs." In 2009, Martin Kramer, a

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

professor, warned about the dangers of allowing Iranian Americans to get too close to power during the 2009

American Israel Public Affairs Committee The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC ) is a lobbying group that advocates pro-Israel policies to the legislative and executive branches of the United States. One of several pro-Israel lobbying organizations in the United Stat ...

(AIPAC) conference: In 2009,

Merrill Lynch Merrill (officially Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated), previously branded Merrill Lynch, is an American investment management and wealth management division of Bank of America. Along with BofA Securities, the investment bank ...

& Co. agreed to pay $1.55 million to resolve a

U.S. government The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 states, a city within a fede ...

lawsuit accusing the bank of discriminating against an Iranian American employee. The government accused the firm of refusing to promote and later firing this employee on the basis of his national origin and religion. On 8 September 2015, 22-year-old Iranian American Shayan Mazroei was stabbed to death by white supremacist Craig Tanber. Mazroei, who resided in Laguna Niguel, was a successful businessman operating his own car dealership in Santa Ana. On the night of 8 September 2015, Mazroei began discussing his mother visiting Iran to his girlfriend in a restaurant until Elizabeth Anne Thornburg spat on Mazroei shouting racial slurs. Tanber, who would later be sentenced to life in prison, then proceeded to stab Mazroei resulting in his death. In 2017 in the

Kansas City The Kansas City metropolitan area is a bi-state metropolitan area anchored by Kansas City, Missouri. Its 14 counties straddle the border between the U.S. states of Missouri (9 counties) and Kansas (5 counties). With and a population of more ...

suburb of

Olathe Olathe ( ) is the county seat of Johnson County, Kansas, United States. It is the fourth-most populous city in both the Kansas City metropolitan area and the state of Kansas, with a 2020 population of 141,290. History 19th century Olathe was ...

, Adam Purinton shot and killed two Indians thinking that they were of Iranian descent. While murdering them Puriton yelled "Get out of my country." In 2018, while on national television, having a discussion about taking a DNA test, Senator Lindsey Graham remarked that it would be "terrible" if he discovered he had Iranian heritage. Graham's statement outraged many high-profile

Iranian-Americans Iranian Americans are United States citizens or nationals who are of Iranian ancestry or who hold Iranian citizenship. Iranian Americans are among the most highly educated people in the United States. They have historically excelled in busine ...

, including Omid Kordestani (chairman of Twitter), Ali Partovi and

Hadi Partovi Hadi or Hady ( ar, هادي) is an Arabic masculine given name and surname. Al-Hadi is one of the 99 names of God in Islam meaning ''guide'' (from the Arabic triconsonantal root ; also present in hidayah). Given name Hadi * Hadi Saei (born 1976), ...

(CEOs of

Code.org Code.org is a non-profit organization and eponymous website led by Hadi and Ali Partovi that aims to encourage people, particularly school students in the United States, to learn computer science. The website includes free coding lessons, sounds, ...

), Pejman Nozad, and British Iranian Christiane Amanpour. In 2020, the United States Border Patrol instituted a large scale detention of Iranian Americans at the Canadian border without probable cause. While returning to the U.S. from Canada, Americans of Iranian heritage were detained by border officers. Over 60 Americans of Iranian descent were detained and interrogated at the Canadian border. The incident took place during a time of escalated tensions between Iran and the U.S.

Notable people

Business and technology

Iranian-Americans are among the most educated and successful communities in the U.S., according to a report by the Iranian Studies group at MIT. Iranian-Americans have founded, or hold senior leadership positions at, many major US companies, including Fortune 500 companies such as GE, Intel,

Citigroup Citigroup Inc. or Citi (Style (visual arts), stylized as citi) is an American multinational investment banking, investment bank and financial services corporation headquartered in New York City. The company was formed by the merger of banking ...

, Verizon, Motorola, Google, and AT&T.

Pierre Omidyar Pierre Morad Omidyar (born Parviz Morad Omidyar, June 21, 1967) is a French-born Iranian-American billionaire. A technology entrepreneur, software engineer, and philanthropist, he is the founder of eBay, where he served as chairman from 199 ...

, founder/CEO of eBay is of Iranian origin, as is the founder of Bratz, Isaac Larian. Hamid Biglari is vice-chairman of Citicorp. Bob Miner was the co-founder of

Oracle Corporation Oracle Corporation is an American multinational computer technology corporation headquartered in Austin, Texas. In 2020, Oracle was the third-largest software company in the world by revenue and market capitalization. The company sells da ...

and the producer of Oracle's

relational database management system A relational database is a (most commonly digital) database based on the relational model of data, as proposed by E. F. Codd in 1970. A system used to maintain relational databases is a relational database management system (RDBMS). Many relatio ...

. In 2006, Anousheh Ansari, co-founder of the Ansari X Prize, became the first female tourist in space. Ansari is also the co-founder and former CEO of Prodea Systems, Inc., and Telecom Technologies, Inc. Other well known Iranian-American entrepreneurs include designer

Bijan Pakzad Bijan Pakzad (; fa, بیژن پاکزاد, ), generally known simply as Bijan (4 April 1940 - 16 April 2011), was an Iranian designer of menswear and fragrances. Biography Bijan Pakzad was born in Tehran, Iran in either 1940 or 1944.Parisa Miche ...

, entrepreneur Sam Nazarian, business executive Hamid Akhavan, former

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

of Unify GmbH & Co. KG (formerly Siemens Enterprise Communications), Omid Kordestani of Twitter and former Senior Vice President of Google, CEO of YouTube Salar Kamangar,

Sina Tamaddon Sina Tamaddon ( fa, سینا تمدن, ) was senior vice president of Application software, applications for Apple Inc. Sina Tamaddon joined Apple in September 1997. He also served the company in the position of senior vice president of worldwid ...

of Apple Inc., and

Shahram Dabiri Shahram Dabiri Oskuei ( fa, شهرام دبیری اسکویی; born 1960) is an Iranian politician, physician, sporting director, professor and former board of directors Football Federation Islamic Republic of Iran, Iran Football Federation. He fo ...

Lead Producer for the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) '' World of Warcraft'' from 1999 to 2007. Dara Khosrowshahi became CEO of Expedia in August 2005 and then in August 2017, Khosrowshahi became the CEO of Uber, succeeding founder Travis Kalanick.

Philanthropy

Many Iranian-Americans are active philanthropists and leaders in improving their community. In 2006, the

University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center (colloquially MD Anderson Cancer Center) is a comprehensive cancer center in Houston, Texas. It is the largest cancer center in the U.S. and one of the original three comprehensive cancer centers ...

was the recipient of a $10 million donation from an Iranian-American couple based in Houston, Texas. The University of Southern California was the recipient of a $17 million gift from an Iranian-American, as was San Francisco State University which received a $10 million gift from an Iranian-American couple. Chicago's Swedish Covenant Hospital received $4 million; Portland State University, $8 million; and UC Irvine, $30 million.

Academia

Well known Iranian-Americans in science include

Firouz Naderi Firouz Michael Naderi ( fa, فیروز نادری: ''Fīrouz Nāderi''; born 25 March 1946) is an Iranian American scientist who spent 36 years in various technical and executive positions at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) where he c ...

, a director at NASA; Ali Javan, inventor of the first gas laser; Maryam Mirzakhani, the first female winner of the

Fields Medal The Fields Medal is a prize awarded to two, three, or four mathematicians under 40 years of age at the International Congress of the International Mathematical Union (IMU), a meeting that takes place every four years. The name of the award ho ...

;

Nima Arkani-Hamed Nima Arkani-Hamed ( fa, نیما ارکانی حامد; born April 5, 1972) is an American-Canadian

, a leading theoretical physicist; cancer biologist

Mina J. Bissell Mina J. Bissell is an Iranian-American biologist known for her research on breast cancer. In particular, she has studied the effects of a cell's microenvironment, including its extracellular matrix, on tissue function. Early life and education ...

;

Gholam A. Peyman Gholam A. Peyman (born 1 January 1937) is an ophthalmologist Ophthalmology ( ) is a surgical subspecialty within medicine that deals with the diagnosis and treatment of eye disorders. An ophthalmologist is a physician who undergoes subspecia ...

, the inventor of LASIK; Lotfi Asker Zadeh;

Vartan Gregorian Vartan Gregorian; fa, وارتان گرگوریان (April 8, 1934 – April 15, 2021) was an Armenian-American academic, educator, and historian. He served as president of the Carnegie Corporation from 1997 to 2021. An Armenian born in Ira ...

; Cumrun Vafa; Babak Hassibi; Nouriel Roubini; Ali Hajimiri;

Pardis Sabeti Pardis Christine Sabeti ( fa, پردیس ثابتی; born December 25, 1975) is an Iranian-American computational biologist, medical geneticist and evolutionary geneticist. She developed a bioinformatic statistical method which identifies sectio ...

; Vahid Tarokh;

Ehsan Afshari Ehsan Afshari is an Iranian-American electrical engineer, researcher and academic. He is Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at University of Michigan. Afshari's research is focused on high frequency circuits and systems for imagin ...

; George Bournoutian;

Payam Heydari Payam Heydari ( fa, پيام حيدرى) is an Iranian-American Professor who is noted for his contribution to the field of radio-frequency and millimeter-wave integrated circuits. Education Heydari attended Sharif University of Technology in T ...

; and

Rashid Massumi Rashid Abdol Massumi (January 21, 1926 – May 29, 2015) was an Iranian-American cardiologist, and a clinical and academic professor known for early contributions to the field of cardiology. General Rashid Ali Massumi was born in Nain, Iran, a ...

, M.D., a pioneer in the fields of electrophysiology and cardiology. Prominent Iranian-Americans in American higher education include

Rahmat Shoureshi Rahmat Allah Shoureshi (Persian: رحمت‌الله شورشی) is an Iranian American former university administrator, most prominently at Portland State University (PSU) from 2017 to 2019. In January 2017, Shoureshi began serving as interim pr ...

, researcher, professor, and provost of

New York Institute of Technology The New York Institute of Technology (NYIT or New York Tech) is a private research university founded in 1955. It has two main campuses in New York—one in Old Westbury, on Long Island, and one in Manhattan. Additionally, it has a cybersecu ...

(NYIT) and Nariman Farvardin, president of Stevens Institute of Technology.

Media

Well known American media personalities of Iranian descent include Christiane Amanpour of ABC News and CNN, born in England; Daron Malakian, member of the rock band System of a Down; Susie Gharib, of '' Nightly Business Report'';

Asieh Namdar Asieh Namdar (born 1967) is an Iranian American journalist and television presenter. She is currently an anchor for CGTN America in Washington, D.C. Early and personal life Namdar was born to parents of Iranian origin in Karachi in 1967, and gr ...

;

Roya Hakakian , birth_date = ca. 1966 , birth_place = Tehran, Iran , death_date = , death_place = , occupation = , language = Persian, English , nationality = , citizenship = American , education = , alma_mater = Brooklyn College, , period = , ...

; Yara Shahidi; and Rudi Bakhtiar. There are several Iranian American actors, comedians and filmmakers, including the Academy Award nominee and

Emmy Award The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...

winner Shohreh Aghdashloo, the award-winning director, producer and screenwriters Amir Cyrus Ahanchian and Cyrus Nowrasteh, actresses Tala Ashe, Catherine Bell, Sarah Shahi,

Nadia Bjorlin Nadia Alexandra Bjorlin (born August 2, 1980) is an American actress, singer, and model. Early life Bjorlin was born on August 2, 1980 in Newport, Rhode Island. She is the second eldest child of Swedish people, Swedish composer and conductor Ulf ...

, Nasim Pedrad,

Desiree Akhavan Desiree Akhavan (born December 27, 1984) is an American filmmaker, writer and actress. She is best known for her 2014 feature film debut ''Appropriate Behavior'',Sheila Vand,

Necar Zadegan Necar Zadegan ( fa, نکار زادگان ; born June 20, 1982) is an American actress with a prolific career on stage and screen. Zadegan made her Broadway debut alongside Robin Williams in the Pulitzer Prize–nominated production ''Bengal Tige ...

Medalion Rahimi Medalion Rahimi (born July 15, 1992) is an American actress of Iranian descent. She is known for playing Princess Isabella on the 2017 ABC Shonda Rhimes Shonda Lynn Rhimes (born January 13, 1970) is an American television screenwriter, pro ...

, and

Bahar Soomekh Bahar Soomekh ( fa, بهار سومخ, born March 30, 1975) is an Iranian-American actress. She is best known for her roles in ''Crash'' and the ''Saw'' franchise. Early life Bahar was born in Tehran, Iran, to a devout Persian-Jewish family. ...

, actors

Adrian Pasdar Adrian Pasdar (born April 30, 1965) is an American film, television, and voice actor. He is known for his roles in '' Profit'', ''Near Dark'', ''Carlito's Way'', ''Mysterious Ways'', ''Heroes'' and as Glenn Talbot on ''Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.''. ...

, Shaun Toub, Arian Moayed, Navid Negahban

Reza Sixo Safai Reza Sixo Safai ( fa, رضا سیکسو صفایی) is an Iranian-born American director Director may refer to: Literature * ''Director'' (magazine), a British magazine * ''The Director'' (novel), a 1971 novel by Henry Denker * ''The Direct ...

, Shahaub Roudbari and Aria Shahghasemi, musicians Sarah Fard (Savoir Faire) and

Rostam Batmanglij Rostam Batmanglij ( fa, رستم باتمانقلیچ, ; born November 28, 1983), known mononymously as Rostam, is an American record producer, musician, singer, songwriter, and composer. He was a founding member of the band Vampire Weekend, whos ...

, comedians Max Amini, Maz Jobrani and

Tehran Von Ghasri Tehran Von Ghasri, or simply Tehran Ghasri ( fa, تهران قصری, ), professionally known as Tehran formerly Tehran SoParvaz, is an American international comedian, actor, host, television and radio personality, entertainer of African-Americ ...

, filmmakers Bavand Karim and

Kamshad Kooshan Kamshad Kooshan (Persian: كامشاد كوشان; born 1962) is an Iranian-born American actor, film director, screenwriter, film producer, and educator. In 2000, his debut feature film, ''Surviving Paradise'', was released to a three-month th ...

, producers Bob Yari and Farhad Safinia, author and performer Shahram Shiva, and artist and filmmaker

Daryush Shokof Daryush Shokof (Persian: داریوش شکوف, born 1954) is an Iranian artist, film director, writer, and film producer based in Germany. Biography He was born as Ali Reza Shokoufandeh on 25 June 1954 in Tehran, Imperial State of Iran. Sho ...

. There are also notable American YouTube personalities of Iranian descent, including JonTron.

Sports

Professional tennis player Andre Agassi,

NFL The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the major ...

football players

T. J. Houshmandzadeh Touraj Houshmandzadeh Jr. ( ; born September 26, 1977) is an American former professional American football, football player who was a wide receiver in the National Football League (NFL). He was selected by the Cincinnati Bengals in the seventh ...

, David Bakhtiari and

Shar Pourdanesh Shahriar Pourdanesh (born July 19, 1970) is a former American football offensive lineman who played in the National Football League for the Washington Redskins, Pittsburgh Steelers, and Oakland Raiders from 1996 to 2001 when in 2001 a severe knee ...

, professional wrestlers Shawn Daivari and The Iron Sheik, professional mixed martial artist Amir Sadollah, professional soccer players Sobhan Tadjalli, Alecko Eskandarian and Steven Beitashour and professional soccer coach Afshin Ghotbi.

Politics

The son of the late Shah of Iran,

Reza Pahlavi Reza Pahlavi may refer to: * Reza Shah (1878–1944), Reza Shah Pahlavi, Shah of Iran from 1925 until 1941 * Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (1919–1980), Shah of Iran from 1941 to 1979, son of Reza Shah * Reza Pahlavi, Crown Prince of Iran Reza Pah ...

, as well as several high-ranking officials in the Shah's administration, such as Hushang Ansary and Jamshid Amouzegar live or have lived in the United States. Goli Ameri is the Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs of the

International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) is a worldwide humanitarian aid organization that reaches 160 million people each year through its 192-member National Societies. It acts before, during and after disas ...

, as well as the former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs from 2008 to 2009, during which she was the highest-ranking Iranian-American public official in the United States. Drug policy expert

Kevin Sabet Kevin Abraham Sabet (born February 20, 1979) is a former three-time White House Office of National Drug Control Policy advisor, having been the only person appointed to that office by both a Republican ( Administration of George W. Bush) and D ...

is Iranian-American and the only person to serve as an appointee in the drug czar's office of George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Beverly Hills elected its first Iranian-born Mayor,

Jimmy Delshad Jamshid "Jimmy" Delshad ( fa, جمشید دلشاد) is an Iranian-American politician in the state of California. He became Mayor of Beverly Hills on March 21, 2007 when he was sworn in by Fred Hayman, and again on March 16, 2010. He is the fi ...

, in 2007.

Bob Yousefian Bob Yousefian is the former mayor of Glendale, California. Biography Bob Yousefian was born in Iran, moved to Lebanon as a teenager and later followed his family to the United States. On April 3, 2001, Yousefian won the election and became a m ...

served as the mayor of

from 2004 to 2005. In November 2011, Anna M. Kaplan was elected Councilwoman in the Town of North Hempstead, New York, becoming the first Iranian-American to be elected to a major municipal office in New York State.

Cyrus Amir-Mokri Cyrus Amir-Mokri ( fa, سیروس امیرمکری) was the Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions at the U.S. Treasury Department. He resigned from Treasury in April 2014. Amir-Mokri was a senior legal and policy advisor to the Chairma ...

, who was appointed as the Treasury Department Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions by President Obama, is the highest ranking Iranian-American official in government as of 2012. In November 2012, Cyrus Habib of Washington state and Adrin Nazarian of California became the first Iranian-Americans elected to state legislatures. Habib is now the Lieutenant Governor of Washington and the first Iranian-American elected to any statewide office. Champaign County (Ohio) elected Fereidoun Shokouhi to the public office of Champaign County Engineer in 1995. He served until his retirement in 2012. Following the

2020 United States House of Representatives elections The 2020 United States House of Representatives elections were held on November 3, 2020, to elect representatives from all 435 congressional districts across each of the 50 U.S. states, as well as six non-voting delegates from the District of C ...

, Oklahoma Rep. Stephanie Bice became the first Iranian American elected to Congress. Azadeh Shahshahani is a human rights attorney based in Atlanta and is a former president of the National Lawyers Guild.

References

Sources

* * * Bozorgmehr, Mehdi., Sabagh, Georges (1988). ''High Status Immigrants: A Statistical Profile of Iranians in the United States'', Iranian Studies. *

External links

2009, ''New York Times''
Iran Census Report (2003): Strength in Numbers
– The Relative Concentration of Iranian Americans Across the United States
Fact-sheet on the Iranian-American Community (ISG MIT)Migration Information Source
– Spotlight on the Iranian Foreign Born
Interest Section of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Washington D.C.
– Consular affairs; videos {{Iranian citizens abroad * Middle Eastern American

Terminology

History

Early history

First phase of emigration

Second phase

Contemporary period

Demographics

Population

Significant Persian population centers

= California

=Texas

Religion

Ethnicity

Citizenship

Integration

Community Outreach

Education

Occupations and income

Physicians

Politics

Ties to Iran

Travel to Iran

Accomplishments

Representation

Television

Film

Education

Discrimination

Notable people

Business and technology

Philanthropy

Academia

Media

Sports

Politics

See also

References

Sources

Further reading

External links