Iranian Americans are legally white but are routinely racialized as non-white in schools

Evidence

In this chapter I trace Iranian American interlocutors’ racial experiences in schools: from elementary school, to middle and high school, and then to college. I examine the paradox of Iranian racialization to understand why it is that Iranian American youth, who are counted as legal whites in the United States, report persistent identity-based bullying by white peers and even teachers. As in the example of Ensie in Rock Creek, the intimidation and harassment of Iranian youth relies heavily on rhetoric drawn from the contemporary War on Terror. — Neda Maghbouleh, The Limits of Whiteness, 255

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the ‘racism without races’ paradox and to other work on legally-white-but-socially-racialized groups such as Arab Americans. — connects to: Student advocacy achieved collective recategorization of Iranians from legal whites to non-white SWANA — Neda Maghbouleh, The Limits of Whiteness: Iranian…, 773; Proximity to whiteness increases rather than reduces Iranian American racialization — Neda Maghbouleh, The Limits of Whiteness: Iranian…, 1388; Iranian Americans have been flexibly positioned inside and outside whiteness — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 1256 (+4 more)

Related

• Legally white Iranian Americans are simultaneously hypervisible in everyday racialization (similarity 0.87)
• Iranians are legally white yet visibly raced in daily life (similarity 0.87)
• Middle Easterners are too white for legal redress yet too non-white to escape racism (similarity 0.85)
• Census whiteness contradicts the everyday social exclusion of Iranian Americans (similarity 0.84)
• Iranians are legally white yet socially non-white in America (similarity 0.84)
• Proximity to whiteness increases rather than reduces Iranian American racialization (similarity 0.84)
• Iranian identity is not fixed as white but shifts across everyday sites. (similarity 0.84)
• Iranians have been positioned across the American color line for over a century. (similarity 0.84)
• Assimilation markers give Iranian Americans little protection from racist portrayal (similarity 0.84)
• Schools are the first institution to tell Iranian youth they are not really white (similarity 0.83)
• Iranian Americans face discrimination legally invisible because they are white by law. (similarity 0.83)
• Arabs and Iranians experience racism while being officially classified as white (similarity 0.83)
• Iranian experience reveals what official whiteness can and cannot protect. (similarity 0.83)
• Iranians were legally whitened and immediately targeted with racial hostility (similarity 0.83)
• Iranian Americans equate being American with being white (similarity 0.83)