Parents strategically mask children’s ethnic identity while in Iran.

Evidence

After Javad relayed the story to me, I asked him what he meant about his father when he said, “It’s the social reasons for why he said that.” Javad said that he really didn’t know, that he just had a “feeling” that his father felt it would be more expedient or easy to explain Javad’s accent that way. This is a very valid possibility. Another might be that Javad’s father felt a degree of shame that Javad’s accent was noticeable; it had perhaps less to do with anything Javad did “wrong” but that his father felt that he had failed to protect Javad, his American-born son, from the critical and judgmental gaze of local Iranians. — Neda Maghbouleh, The Limits of Whiteness, 931

Categorization

• XREF: Parental masking of a child’s true identity as strategic presentation exemplifies the constructed-ness of identity performance, central to reader’s strategic essentialism question. — connects to: Parents erase Iranian identity to explain away children’s imperfect Persian — Neda Maghbouleh, The Limits of Whiteness: Iranian…, 401

Broader Connections

• Parents erase Iranian identity to explain away children’s imperfect Persian #expands (0.90) — Neda Maghbouleh, The Limits of Whiteness, 401