Since the 1979 Iranian Revolution that led to the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI), Iranians have been subjected to stigmatization, suspicion, and discrimination in American political and media discourses and public images they create. Based on one year of ethnographic fieldwork (2017-18), the present work inquires into how Iranian Angelinos respond to and challenge these images by conducting public events such as religious rituals, national festivals, and political rallies. I study the discursivity of behaviors and objects such as the so-called "traditional" dances, clothes, cuisines, religious discussions, and political placards in the public events, and highlight how Iranian Angelinos utilize these practices to respond to the negative portrayal of Iranians in particular and Muslims in general in the US.
The studies of Muslims in the US have primarily focused on the macro-dynamics and relations that suspect, exclude, racialize, mark, disparage, and marginalize Muslims. These macro-dynamics include dominant political, ideological, and racial power relations and institutions and discourses they produce on Islam and Muslims. My work intervenes in discussions on Muslims in the US and Iranian diaspora studies by shifting the focus from "America" and its dominant public discourses to a set of Muslim Iranian diaspora communities, their vernacular practices, and the ways they respond to these public discourses. Instead of concentrating on macro-dynamics of power, I expand the focus to include the micro-dynamics and theorize the discursive capacities of vernacular practices that are usually ignored, uncharted, and undetected by technologies of power. My research demonstrates how and why supposedly unimportant practices such as foodways, folk dances, or jokes (micro-dynamics) are meaningful; that is, ordinary people and excluded groups manifest their agencies and engage with relations of dominance (macro-dynamics) by modifying and staging their vernacular practices in their public events.
On the one hand, I show that some of these responses counter the public images of Muslims and Iranians in the US. On the other, I demonstrate that these engagements are not necessarily subversive. While some Iranian Angelinos reject the political and media discourses on Muslims and Iranians, many Iranian Angelinos conform to the politics of suspicion and exclusion based on racial, religious, and ideological orientations. For instance, in some of their political rallies and heritage events, they present Iranians as "Aryans" and thus racially "white." In these events, Iranian Angelinos do not protest the logic of suspicion and exclusion based on skin color; instead, they criticize American politicians and media for their alleged misunderstanding of Iranians as non-white, laying the claim that Iranians can be part of "America" because they are white. I argue, therefore, that not only can relations of dominance devour resistive forces and exclude "others," but individuals excluded by dominant discourses may themselves desire to be incorporated into the broader relations of power. In other words, the excluded do not always resist the circumstance of marginalization; they may protest not being part of it.