Abstract
Recent political events have created a political and social climate in the United States that promotes prejudice against Middle Eastern, Iranian, and Muslim peoples. In this study, we were interested in investigating two major questions: (1) How much ethnic harassment do Iranian-American men and women from various religious backgrounds (Muslim, Jewish, or no religious affiliation at all) perceive in their day-to-day interactions? (2) To what extent does the possession of stereotypical Middle Eastern, Iranian, or Muslim traits (an accent, dark skin, wearing of religious symbols, traditional garb, etc.) spark prejudice and thus the perception of ethnic harassment? Subjects were recruited from two very different sources: (1) shoppers at grocery stores in Iranian-American neighborhoods in Los Angeles, and (2) a survey posted on an online survey site. A total of 338 Iranian-Americans, ages 18 and older, completed an in-person or online questionnaire that included the following: a request for demographic information, an assessment of religious preferences, a survey of how “typically” Iranian-American Muslim or Iranian-American Jewish the respondents’ traits were, and the Ethnic Harassment Experiences Scale. One surprise was that, in general, our participants reported experiencing a great deal of ethnic harassment. As predicted, Iranian-American Muslim men perceived the most discrimination—far more discrimination than did American Muslim women. Overall, there were no significant differences between the various religious groups. All felt discriminated against. Iranian-American men and women, whose appearance was stereotypically Middle Eastern (i.e., they wore Middle Eastern clothing), who had sub-ethnic identification, and who had lower family income, generally reported experiencing the most prejudice.
Highlights
At one time, the United States and Iran had fairly cordial relations
Our question is “How does American’s prejudice and discrimination against Iranian-American Muslim’s effect that target group?” We proposed a series of hypotheses and questions: Hypotheses and questions — We assume that all Middle-Easterners, be they religious or non-religious, male or female, and identifiable or noticeable only to the few, might expect to encounter some prejudice
One remedy would be to interview a nationally representative sample of Iranian-American Muslims, Jews, Christians, and atheists. Such recruitment would ensure the inclusion of Iranian-American Jews and Muslims who display higher degrees of symbols of religious affiliation and participants from a wider range of education and income
Summary
The United States and Iran had fairly cordial relations. When Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi was the Shah (from 1941 until his overthrow in 1979) both the U.S and Great Britain were strong supporters of Iran and the Shah. In 1979, the Ayatollah Khomeini seized power and the Iranian Revolution occurred. He was named Supreme Leader and the country was renamed the Islamic Republic of Iran. In 1979, the Iran Hostage Crisis occurred; 63 American diplomats and citizens were taken and held prisoner in Tehran for 444 days. On September 11, 2001, when al Qaeda supporters flew planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington, D. C., and attempted to fly into the White House, Iranian-American relations plummeted. Bush designated Iran, Iraq, and North Korea as the “Axis of Evil” and
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