On Iranian-Americans, home, and belonging
-
Reading about Kambiz being identified by white people as black in Maghbouleh’s text, I thought of South-African comedian Trevor Noah (former host of The Daily Show), who recounts being told by an American in South-Africa that if he were in the US, he would be considered black. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXje3oJ8T8o (the video in question). Interestingly, Noah also talks about how mixed people (like himself) only become black after becoming successful and jokes about himself practicing being black on his 18 hour flight to the US – which is of course further related to the scope of Maghbouleh’s text because race is manipulated by others or the concerned people themselves depending on context and convenience/interests, just as in the case of Iranian Americans who are inconsistently raced.
All three texts (on Iranian-Americans), in different ways, touch upon navigating multiple identities. Maghbouleh focuses on the tension of being legally white but socially perceived as non-white (and vice-versa), while Namazie explores the fluidity of identity for those who identify as queer and trans within the Iranian diaspora. As for Jadali, they delve into the complexities of identifying as both Iranian and Muslim, particularly when facing both Islamophobia and “non-Islamiosity”. Both Jadali and Namazie’s texts challenge simplistic categorizations of identity by highlighting the multiplicity, fluidity and adaptability of identity, faith, and cultural heritage within the Iranian American diaspora.
Jadali's interviewees, second-generation queer and trans Iranian Americans, often identify as “not really Muslim”, largely due to their parents’ "non-Islamiosity", which itself stems in part from negative experiences associated with the Iranian Revolution and the Hostage Crisis. The interviewees also grew up hearing anti-Islam commentary from family members framing Islam as the reason for Iran's perceived backwardness and oppression. Their consequent perceptions of Islam as a rigid religion requiring strict adherence to sets of rules and rituals – an understanding reinforced by the dominance of "modern political Islam" emphasising orthodoxy and prescriptive practices – leads them to reject Islam. They hesitate to call themselves Muslims as they do not consistently practice all Islamic rituals. However, their self-identification adapts and shifts depending on context, asserting themselves as Muslim when faced with white/Christian bodies, but hesitating to do so around visibly practicing (“actual”) Muslims. Jadali shows that individuals can simultaneously embrace and reject aspects of Islam, engaging in selective practices and holding seemingly contradictory beliefs, underscoring the individualised nature of faith and the inadequacy of imposing singular definitions upon it. Social and political contexts significantly influence how individuals define and experience their faith. This is particularly evident in the shifts in identification observed before and after Trump's Muslim Ban, which served as a turning point for many of Jadali's interviewees, prompting a shift in their understanding of and identification with Islam. It concretized their "Muslimness" in the eyes of the state, regardless of their personal beliefs or practices. Many interviewees and their families also faced direct consequences of the ban, such as travel restrictions and difficulties in bringing family members to the US. The ban therefore overall strengthened the interviewees’ sense of legitimacy to their Muslim identity and pushed them to defend Islam more actively, viewing it as a defense of their family and cultural heritage. This allowed them to overcome some of the guilt they previously felt in claiming it and effectively solidified their connection to Islam, even if they didn't fully embrace all its tenets.
I too have often feared that I am coopting something that is not mine to claim, though more in terms of my “Arabness” than my Muslimness. In the same way that they would claim themselves “not really Muslim”, but something like Muslim-adjacent, I would then feel not “really” Arab, rather Arab-adjacent, and even less so Muslim. I too grew up in a “non-islamious” environment, though perhaps to a further extent even then Jadali’s interviewees, because this “non-Islamiosity” dates back to my grandparents who were the first generation to openly claim whatever semblance of ‘atheism’ in the 1960s-70s Middle East. I am also half-white and grew up in multiple overlapping diasporic contexts, which created even more distance from both my “Muslimness” and my “Arabness”. There is for me a complete disconnect from Islam, yet it has also always been familiar and of course is inextricably linked to the ethnic-cultural identity which I am also struggling to claim for myself. Only since entering university did I begin openly self-identifying as Arab or Lebanese Palestinian, asserting that very identity of mine that was under attack and most needed defending, even to fellow Arabs and Muslims, despite feelings of impostor syndrome. This is interesting because when I first moved to Canada from Germany in 2012 and had to integrate the French (not Quebecois!) school system, my main frames of reference were Germanness and Berlin, and although I could not help but be as German as I was, I was the only German at the school, therefore I worked very hard at becoming a chameleon so as not to be othered. But upon starting McGill, for the first time I saw others who shared some sense or other of my non-whiteness and did not and/or could not hide it (in contrast for instance to the laïque French school’s which prohibits showing any ostentatious symbols).
In the beginning of Maghbouleh’s text, it is mentioned Leyla does not self-identify as white but is perceived as such by whites and fellow Iranians alike. I can definitely relate to this, not growing up around many other Middle Easterners like me, looking different from my visibly Middle Eastern grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins, and getting ambiguous looks by fellow Arabs/Muslims who seem to think I’m white. In such or similar conditions, you start believing you’re white, especially the more disconnected you are from home (in whatever sense it is understood).
But Namazie displaces vatan as a physical place of origin and belonging, suggesting instead that home is a state of being, a conscious choice and orientation towards the world: a “presence”. They reject the notion of passively inheriting a homeland and instead present it as a continuous process of negotiation and resistance. This redefinition of homeland as a layered entity continuously shaped by personal experiences, historical events, and ongoing struggles is of great comfort. It is soothing for displaced, exiled, and/or diasporic peoples because it returns to us the legitimacy to claim and negotiate our cultural heritage as our own rather than a fixed monolith of authenticity belonging only to those who never left the geographical homeland. The same is true for queers as we discussed on Monday, giving them back their claim to home that isn’t fixed in some past. -
sorry this is so long!!!
-
this was submitted late because I was still catching up after being sick for a week.