Observations of Tehrangeles: A Cultural Enclave in Los Angeles

The United States of America is a diverse country, and is best exemplified by the epithet
of being the melting pot of cultures. Within the geographical contiguity of the country, several
ethnicities reside who on one hand maintain their cultural identity and its specificities, and on the
other hand they also assimilate into the broader fold of being an American. Owing to this
particular reason, it is said that the form of multiculturalism that is followed in the United States
of America is the salad bowl model of assimilation. The social situations are such that each one
is allowed to maintain their own individuality and at the same time claim that they are equal and
has equal access to nationhood and its benefits. This particular essay shall be devoted to the
enlistment of the set of observations conducted at a particular social setting in the country. For
the purpose of observation, the region which is popularly referred to as Tehrangeles shall be
taken up for discussion. A description of the culture that prevails over there, the ways of
behaviour to be observed in there, the personal experience of feeling of an insider and an
outsider at the same time, and how it has affected my observation of the chosen social setting
shall be provided in the following sections. The method of collecting and interpreting the cultural
data has been from the positionality of reflexivity, and that has provided the insight to determine
whether more research is needed in the field and by what means.
A neighbourhood in the Los Angeles had soon turned out to be the hot spot of Iranian
nationals from the year 1960s and 70s. The number of Iranian nationals immigrating to the
United States of America had escalated by dramatic leaps and bounds just before and after the
1979 Islamic Revolution which had brought about catastrophic changes to the country and the
people. The Shah of Iran, Reza Pahlevi was deposed and the country had come under the rule of
hardline Islamic fundamentalism spearhead Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and the mullahs. The
legal and the societal changes that were brought about in the country severly curtailed the