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Settlement Patterns of Iranians in the United States

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Ali Modarres
Ali Modarres*
Affiliation:
Department of Geography and Urban Analysis, California State University, Los Angeles
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Extract

In 1990, The U.S. Census Reported that 226,123 Iranian immigrants were living in the U.S., a growth of slightly under 100,000 in a tenyear period. These were individuals who either were born in Iran, or were of Iranian ancestry but born outside Iran in a country other than the U.S. The almost doubling of this population over a short period of time, combined with the group's variety of socioeconomic backgrounds, has created some of the most diverse ethnic geographies in the U.S.

Traditionally, academic theories have focused on issues regarding chain migration, port of entry, the assimilation process, ethnic economy, and labor market participation to explain the geographic distribution of various ethnic groups and their shifts over time.

Type
Articles
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 31 , Issue 1: Iranians in America , Winter 1998 , pp. 31 - 49
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 1998

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References

1. Modarres, Ali, “Ethnic Community Development: An Ecological Perspective on Iranians in Los Angeles,” (Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Arizona, 1990)Google Scholar. Bozorgmehr, Mehdi and Sabagh, Georges, “High Status Immigrants: A Statistical Profile of Iranians in the United States,” Iranian Studies 21 (1988): 5–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2. Immigrants: Aliens admitted to the United States as lawful permanent residents. They may be issued immigrant visas by the Department of State overseas or adjusted to permanent resident status by the Immigration and Naturalization Service in the United States. (Source: http://www.ins.usdoj.gov/textonly/public/370.html). (For definition of Adjustments, see http://www.ins.usdoi.gov/public/324.html). (For definition of New Arrivals, see http://www.ins.usdoj.gov/public/391.html).

3. Immigration and Naturalization Service, 1972 Statistical Yearbook (Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1972), table 14.

4. Nonimmigrant: An alien who seeks temporary entry to the United States for a specific purpose. The alien must have a permanent residence abroad (for most classes of admission) and qualify for the nonimmigrant classification sought. The nonimmigrant classifications are: foreign government officials, visitors for business and for pleasure, aliens in transit through the United States, treaty traders and investors, students, international representatives, temporary workers and trainees, representatives of foreign information media, exchange visitors, fiance(e)s of U.S. citizens, intracompany transferees, and NATO officials. Most nonimmigrants can be accompanied or joined by spouses and unmarried minor (or dependent) children. Although refugees, parolees, withdrawals, and stowaways are processed as nonimmigrants upon arrival to the United States, these classes, as well as crewmen, are not included in nonimmigrant admission data.

(Source: http://www.ins.usdoj.gov/textonly/public/392.html).

5. Askari, Hosein, Cummings, John T., and Isbudak, Mehmet, “Iran's Migration of Skilled Labor to the United States,” Iranian Studies 10 (1977): 3–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6. Askari et al., “Iran's Migration of Skilled Labor to the United States.”

7. Mehdi Bozorgmehr and Georges Sabagh, “High Status Immigrants.”

8. See Mehdi Bozorgmehr's article in this issue of Iranian Studies.

9. Includes “newly arrived” and “adjusted.”

10. Modarres, Ali, “Ethnic Community Development.”

11. In 1978, a total of 130,545 Iranian nonimmigrants visited the U.S.

12. In 1978, Iranian immigrants who were over 50 made up 9.3% of this population. By 1987, their share had grown to 18.2%.

13. With a total of 29,483 ZIP Codes in the U.S., this translates to one out of every four ZIP codes.

14. The “Foreign Born Population” data set is published by the Census Bureau separately under Subject Summary Tape File (SSTF1-CD90SSTF01).

15. For detailed data, see Ali Modarres, “Ethnic Community Development.”

16. Since it can be assumed that the hostage crisis has affected the 1980 figures and that Iranians were undercounted, the difference between the 1980 enumeration and the 1990 figures or the pre-1980 immigrants also contains some of the uncounted. As such, the interpretation of differences and figure 9 requires care. The author's intention is only to show regional patterns and the direction of movements, not the magnitude of these shifts.

17. Crispino, James A., The Assimilation of Ethnic Groups: The Italian Case (New York: Center for Migration Studies, 1980)Google Scholar.

18. The number of nonimmigrant Iranians increased from 35,088 in 1975 to 130,545 in 1978.