Abstract
After the September 11 attacks in 2001, some Islamic Mosques were vandalized, hate crimes against Muslims increased, thousands of Muslim men were placed into deportation proceedings, and civil rights for Middle Eastern and Muslim Americans were violated. Moreover, a majority of anti-terrorist policies and initiatives executed during the first year after 9/11 targeted Arabs and Muslims. Much like other Middle Eastern immigrants since 9/11, Iranians have been victims of discrimination, prejudice, hate crimes, and racial profiling because of their national origin and the political tension between Iran and the USA. In response to the legal changes, discriminatory immigration practices, and violation of civil rights after 9/11, instead of hiding, second-generation Iranian advocacy groups and organizations responded to this backlash through political activism and legal challenges. This chapter describes the various ways young second-generation Iranians sought to become politically engaged to protect their civil liberties, receive legal assistance for immigration issues, and oppose discriminatory policies. Since then, Iranian immigrants matured politically and gained a new perspective on political processes in the USA. Whereas first-generation Iranians remain politically divided, preoccupied with political events in Iran, and in search of support for their political causes, second-generation Iranians are gradually socializing into American political institutions and are working to enter mainstream politics in the USA. They are not only working to protect the civil rights of naturalized Iranians in the USA but also to reclaim, retain, and redefine the Iranian ethnicity that has been under attack for the last 35 years.
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Notes
- 1.
2006–2008 American Community Survey report provides data for all Iranians and Iranian women 16 and over in the labor force. The employment rate for Iranian men was calculated and inferred from S0201 Selected Population Profile in the United States for Iranians. According to the 2006–2008 American Community Survey reports published by the US Census Bureau 176,824 of the 340,124 Iranians were comprised of men and the remaining 163,300 were women aged 16 and over. Nearly 70 percent (122,206) of Iranian men and 54.7 percent (89,488) of Iranian women aged 16 and over were employed in the civilian labor force in 2008.
- 2.
The US Census Bureau defines a household as all the people who occupy a housing unit as their usual place of residence and a family as a group of two or more people who reside together and who are related by birth, marriage, or adoption.
- 3.
PollingReport.com; http://www.pollingreport.com/iran.htm and Blanton (2006).
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Mobasher, M.M. (2016). Immigration Restrictions and Political Mobilization Among Second-Generation Iranian Immigrants in the USA. In: Leal, D., Rodríguez, N. (eds) Migration in an Era of Restriction and Recession. Immigrants and Minorities, Politics and Policy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24445-7_8
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