Points, Privilege, Perception
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Muhammedi’s texts shines a light on Canada’s liberal immigration policy under Trudeau’s premiership, and Maghbouleh’s text presents the arbitrary definitions of race, acceptance, and details the Iranian diaspora experience in the US.
Muhammedi discusses the introduction of the point system, a system that basically defines what a worthwhile immigrant is in the eyes of the Canadian government. Age, education, training, occupational skill in demand, knowledge of English or French, personal assessment made by an immigration officer, relatives in Canada, arranged employment, and employment opportunities in area of destination dictated the worth of an applicant according to the point system. This policy presents the model immigrant being one that meets the educational, economic, and cultural demands of Canada. The national sources of Canadian immigrants by 1973 as detailed in the article happen to be Commonwealth countries, which showcases either the fact that basically half the planet was at one point under the British Crown, or that Canada prioritized likeminded people.
With the arrival of the first Ugandan expellees in 1972, the majority of the population was concerned about rising unemployment, federal politics, and Canada-Russia hockey contests. High unemployment at the time provoked fears that the incoming Ugandans would take away jobs. There were concerns of assimilation, given that Canada had already to deal with French, English, and Indignous communities in Canada. But even groups that accepted the immigrants would advocate and paint the picture that these immigrants are poor little fellows who are in desperate need of help. Not capable, independent people who are able-bodied and sovereign. “Some argued that ‘Canada can do no less. There is a humanitarian duty to admit some of these unfortunate displaced people to the country—to prove that were are, as we so often boast, a tolerant open society.’”
The immigrants essentially serve a purpose, perhaps mainly an eocnomic. I believe this is also evident in Maghbouleh’s text as the influx of Iranian immigrants dictated racial laws in the US, but also displayed Iran’s western-leaning modernization policies whihc were certainly beneficial in American foreign policy and soft power in the Middle East.
A first wave of Iranians arrived in the US on student visas in the 1950s, and by the second large wave in the wake of the 1979 Revolution, all Iranians were legally classified as white. However, after the Hostage Crisis, they were socially browned. But even legally, analyzed by Maghbouleh on a case by case basis, Middle Eastern immigrants applying for citizenship having to prove whiteness would argue their unlikeness to Iranians meant they were unlike the “clearly non-white” Iranians. Yet, at the same, Parsi migrants would argue they are white as being a descendent of the “clearly white” Iranians. Parsis were a group in India with high literacy rates and wealth. Evidence suggests Parsis’ social status was consolidated during British colonialism with emphases on colourism and forced assimilation.
Under the pro-western Mohammad Reza Shah, Iran’s modernization efforts included encouraging and sponsoring newly middle-class families to enroll their sons in universities abroad, most notably American universities. Given that by mid-1970s more foreign students came from Iran than any other country, Iranians and others with origins in the Middle East and North Africa were classified as white by law.
After the hostage crisis, many Americans organized a series of anti-Iranian demonstrations, with one demonstration hosting five thousand people, sharing slogans like “fuck Iran” and “Piss on Iran.” Iranians students studying at American universities would then have to undergo additional screening and documentation with several thousand students being deported to Iran.
While Americans were debating the threat of Iranians and their perceptions of them, Iranian are also caught in internal discourses over their own racial idenity. This is evident in Pourghoraishi’s case. Speaking as an Iranian myself, I was told that I am an Aryan whose lineage goes back to what is now Germany. I was not told explicitly that I am “white,” but it is fair to say that it was implied. To an Iranian like Pourghoraishi, being asked to argue that he is indeed not white would be like stomping on an idenity that you have known all your life, and a level of disrespect given the colourism that exists in Iran.
In both cases, the US and Canada play a saviour-like role: Canada’s public sentiments in favour of accepting Ugandan expellees was an act that was only worthy of the great tolerant country that is Canada to take in her warm arms that unfortunately souls; the US is to educate Iranians and to being modernization to their country. I do not mean that Canada and the US acted with pure malintent at all. I do believe—especially in Canada’s case—that there really was a longing for humanitarian aid. But given how difficult it has been for immigrants to be accepted—however capable they may prove themselves (like the Beverly Hills example)—and given the arbitrarily enacted racial laws, it is hard to ignore the white supremacist attitudes that exist in the fine lines.