Between Longing and Reinvention: Negotiating Iranian-American Identity in the Los Angeles Diaspora

In the years following the 1979 Iranian revolution, Iranian migrants—many fleeing from political, religious, and ethnic persecution—reshaped Los Angeles into the largest diasporic center outside of the homeland of Iran. For these individuals and their descendants, displacement was not simply a geographic shift, but a profound confrontation with questions of identity, belonging, and survival. Situated between memories of a lost homeland and the racialized pressures of the U.S. landscape, these individuals have continuously renegotiated what it means to be an Iranian-American. This thesis examines how Iranian Jews and Muslims in the Los Angeles diaspora perceive, reshape, and express their identities in response to the political and social forces in both the home and host land.