Iranians were legally white but socially browned after the hostage crisis
Evidence
Following this, I describe how a first wave of Iranians, like Kambiz, arrived in the United States on student visas in the 1950s, still straddling the limits of whiteness. By the time of the next large wave in the wake of the 1979 revolution, all Iranians in America were legally classified as white. I then describe how in reaction to the Iranian hostage crisis they were swiftly, and perhaps irrevocably, socially browned. Although still white by law, the browning of Iranians has continued after September 11, 2001, and I present recent legal and social evidence showing how Iranian Americans must navigate “racial loopholes” at the boundaries of whiteness in which they face racial discrimination that cannot be fully understood or redressed due to their white de jure racial status. — Neda Maghbouleh, The Limits of Whiteness, 118
Categorization
- DEFINE: Introduces the ‘racial loophole’: de jure white status that fails to capture de facto discrimination, the structural slot where the reader’s strategic-essentialism bind gets tested.
- XREF: connects to: Iranian experience reveals what official whiteness can and cannot protect. — Neda Maghbouleh, The Limits of Whiteness: Iranian…, 66; Iranians are legally white yet socially non-white in America — Neda Maghbouleh, The Limits of Whiteness: Iranian…, 90; Iranians were legally whitened and immediately targeted with racial hostility — Neda Maghbouleh, The Limits of Whiteness: Iranian…, 81 (+5 more)
Broader Connections
- Iranians are legally white yet socially non-white in America
#corroborates(0.95) — Neda Maghbouleh, The Limits of Whiteness, 90 - Iranians are legally white yet visibly raced in daily life
#corroborates(0.90) — Neda Maghbouleh, The Limits of Whiteness, 13 - Legally white Iranian Americans are simultaneously hypervisible in everyday racialization
#corroborates(0.90) — Neda Maghbouleh, The Limits of Whiteness, 37 - Arabs and Iranians experience racism while being officially classified as white
#corroborates(0.85) — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 472 - Social whiteness on the ground remains elusive for Iranian Americans
#corroborates(0.85) — Neda Maghbouleh, The Limits of Whiteness, 550 - Iranians were legally whitened and immediately targeted with racial hostility
#qualifies(0.80) — Neda Maghbouleh, The Limits of Whiteness, 81 - Iranian Americans are legally white but are routinely racialized as non-white in schools
#exemplifies(0.80) — Neda Maghbouleh, The Limits of Whiteness, 255