🇺🇸 Washington, DC

The Iranian community in Washington differs from those in other American cities. Less commercial, more academic and political. Professors at Georgetown, Johns Hopkins, George Washington and GMU; staff at the State Department and international organisations; researchers at Brookings and Carnegie; people working at civic organisations like NIAC and PAAIA. That concentration of Iranian-American institutions is unique to DC.

Most Iranians in DC do not actually live in DC but in the Northern Virginia suburbs: Tysons, McLean, Falls Church, Vienna, Fairfax. Those areas, with their quality of life, strong schools and dense Iranian community, have become the natural choice for Iranian-American families. Maryland, especially Bethesda and Rockville, has a substantial community too.

DC is a city of people passing through. Many come for a few years for a government post, a degree, or a research project, and then leave. That constant turnover means relationships form quickly and break just as quickly. Building long friendships in DC takes deliberate effort.

Being Iranian in DC means being political whether you chose it or not. At a work party, in a job interview, in conversation with a neighbour: the moment people learn you are Iranian, questions arrive about the nuclear deal, sanctions, negotiations, Iranian domestic politics. The pressure of representing Iran when you only wanted to be an ordinary resident is exhausting.

Iranians working in sensitive fields, State, the intelligence community, the Pentagon, cleared think-tank work, carry another layer: restrictions on travelling to Iran, security review, permanent caution in conversations with family. That silent pressure, which cannot be discussed with the people around you, is one of the hidden sources of anxiety in DC's Iranian community.

Politics also seeps into friendships. Disagreement about the nuclear deal, US-Iran relations, the role of the opposition, can complicate personal relationships. At a dinner among friends, one political aside can change the room and leave something heavy behind.

Iranian-Americans in DC often live inside three identities at once: Iranian at home, American at work, and a professional-political persona shaped by the city itself. Those three do not necessarily agree. Somebody who spends the day writing about Middle East policy at a think tank, the evening talking with their mother about a family wedding, and the weekend at an American restaurant with colleagues, sometimes cannot see what those three versions have in common.

The second generation here has usually grown up in strong educational environments: private schools in Fairfax, Ivy League universities, unusual career opportunities. That visible success can produce severe internal pressure. My parents sacrificed all that; I cannot make a mistake. This hidden perfectionism is one of the most common psychological problems in this generation.

Mixed marriages are more frequent in DC's Iranian community than in other cities, because of the professional and academic variety. Those cross-cultural marriages have their own richness and their own complications, particularly around raising children, relationships with extended family, and managing the holidays and rituals of two cultures.