L.A.’s Iranian community grapples with reactions to U.S. military attack

Roozbeh Farahanipour was seated in the blue-green glow of the 220 gallon salt water aquarium from his Westwood restaurant and worries about Iran, his accentuated voice of anxiety.

It was Sunday morning, and the homeland he fled a quarter of a century ago had been bombed by the US military, degenerating a conflict that started nine days earlier when Israel made a surprise attack on his enemy from the sustainable Middle East.

“Anger and hatred for the Iranian regime – I have it, but I try to manage it,” said Farahanipour, owner of Delphi Greek Restaurant and two other restaurants nearby. “I don’t think something will come out. If, for any reason, the regime will be changed, either we are faced with another Iraq or Afghanistan, or we will see the situation of the Balkans. Iran will be divided into pieces. “

Farahanipour, 53, who had been a political activist before fleeing Iran, rocked a series of questions as a gray shark made lazy loops in the reservoir behind him. What could happen to civilians in Iran if the American attack triggers a more widespread war? What about the potential loss of Israeli life? And the Americans too? After fighting with these heavy questions, he asked a more work: “What will be the price of gas tomorrow?”

This is life for Iranian Americans in Los Angeles, a diaspora which includes the largest Iranian community outside Iran. Farahanipour, like other Iranian Americans interviewed by Times, described “very mixed and complicated” feelings about the crisis in Iran, which degenerated on Sunday early Sunday when the United States struck three nuclear sites there, joining an Israeli effort to disrupt the country’s quest for an atomic weapon.

About 141,000 Iranian Americans live in the County of Los Angeles, according to the Iranian data dashboard, organized by the Center of the UCLA for the studies of the Middle East. The epicenter of the community is Westwood, where the homonymous boulevard in the neighborhood is speckled with windows covered with Persian script.

Sunday morning, the reaction to the news of the conflict was silent in an area nicknamed “Tehrageles” – a reference to the Iranian capital – after welcoming the Iranians who emigrated to Los Angeles during the Islamic Revolution of 1979. In certain stores and restaurants, CNN journalists, Spectrum News and other points of sale were more numerous than Iranian customers. At Attari Sandwich Shop, known for his beef tongue sandwich, the Iranian pre -revolution flag hung near the cash register – but none of the guests wanted to give an interview.

“No thanks; [I’m] Not really political, ”said a middle -aged guest with an ironic smile.

Kevan Harris, an associate professor of sociology at the UCLA, said that any involvement of the United States in a military conflict with Iran is transported with meaning and has long been the subject of hits.

“This scenario – which seems almost fantastic in a way – is something that has been in the imagination: the United States will bomb Iran,” said Harris, an American Iranian who wrote the book “A social revolution: politics and the providence in Iran”. “For 20 years, this is something that has been regularly discussed.”

Many emigrants find themselves torn between a deep aversion and resentment to the authoritarian government that they have fled and worry about the family members left behind. Some in Westwood were ready to discuss.

A woman who asked to be identified only as Mary, for the sake of security for her family in Iran, said that she had emigrated five years ago and that she was visiting Los Angeles with her husband. The resident of Chicago said that last and a half was very difficult last week, in part because many in her immediate family, including her parents, still live in Tehran. They recently left the city for another place in Iran due to the ongoing attacks of the Israeli forces.

“I speak to them every day,” said Mary, 35.

Standing outside Shater Abbass Bakery & Market – whose owner also hung the Iranian flag before 1979 – Mary said she was “hopeful and worried”.

“It’s a very confusing feeling,” she said. “Some people are happy because they don’t like the government – they hate government.” Others, she said, are upset by the destruction of goods and the death of civilians.

Mary had planned to visit her family in Iran in August, but it was scrambled. “Now I don’t know what I should do,” she said.

Not far from Westwood, the eminent Iranian Jewish community of Beverly Hills made her presence feel. Shahram Javidnia, 62 on Sunday morning, approached a group of pro-Israeli supporters who organized a procession directed towards the large “Beverly Hills” panel in the city. One of them agitated an Israeli flag.

Javidnia, an Iranian Jew who lives in Beverly Hills and opposes the government in Iran, said that he is watching social media, television and radio for the situation.

“Now that they are in a weak point,” he said about Iran’s authoritarian management, “maybe it may be for Iranians to get up and try to do what is good.”

Javidnia came to the United States in 1978 in adolescence, a year before the Revolution would lead to the overthrow of the Shah and to the establishment of the Islamic Republic. He settled in the Los Angeles region and has not returned since. He said that the return is not something he even thinks of.

“The place where I spent my childhood is no longer there,” he said. “It doesn’t exist.”