The first generation inherited Aryan whiteness from Iranian state socialization

Evidence

The most common racial argument is that Iranians who “colonized the Central Asian plateau” are “not Arab” but “actually Indo-European” and “the Aryan race.” Donya’s mom echoed this view when she told her daughter, “We are Aryan” and “the original white people of the world.” In these instances it is clear how the Aryan myth is imported into diaspora from its original, better-understood Iranian context. Its appearance in Iranian American life should not be particularly surprising, however: as children in Iran, first-generation immigrant elders were intensely socialized into a white Iranian national narrative, despite later possessing a variety of political affiliations and commitments toward their homeland in diaspora. — Neda Maghbouleh, The Limits of Whiteness, 379

Categorization

• XREF: Shows the state-origin of the inherited essentialist repertoire that the second generation then treats with ironic distance or rejects. — connects to: South Asian claimants used Iranian ‘Aryan’ origin to argue their whiteness — Neda Maghbouleh, The Limits of Whiteness: Iranian…, 151; Social experience, not family ideology, determines second-generation Iranian racial identification — Neda Maghbouleh, The Limits of Whiteness: Iranian…, 356; First-generation Iranian parents teach their children that Iranians are Aryan whites — Neda Maghbouleh, The Limits of Whiteness: Iranian…, 167 (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• First-generation Iranian parents teach their children that Iranians are Aryan whites #corroborates (0.95) — Neda Maghbouleh, The Limits of Whiteness, 167
• Iranian Americans arrived with legal whiteness and Aryan nationalist ideologies #expands (0.90) — Neda Maghbouleh, The Limits of Whiteness, 548
• Iranian family racial talk repeatedly centers the Aryan myth and Persian exceptionalism #expands (0.85) — Neda Maghbouleh, The Limits of Whiteness, 174
• Iranians’ inherited Aryan myth erases India and is inseparable from anti-Arab racism #expands (0.80) — Neda Maghbouleh, The Limits of Whiteness, 1461
• The Aryan-Iran etymology is a recent invented racial fiction #qualifies (0.72) — Neda Maghbouleh, The Limits of Whiteness, 558