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Roozbeh Farahanipour was worried about Iran, sitting in the turquoise glow of his 220-gallon saltwater aquarium at his Westwood restaurant.
It was Sunday morning, and the homeland he fled a quarter-century ago was bombed by US troops, escalating a conflict that began nine days before Israel was hit with shocking attacks by its perennial Middle Eastern enemies.
“The anger and hatred of the Iranian regime – I have it, but I’m trying to manage it,” said Farahanipour, owner of Delphi Greek Restaurant and owner of two other nearby restaurants. “I don’t think there will be any good going on. If for any reason the regime changes, we will see whether we are facing another Iraq or Afghanistan, or the situation with the Balkans. Iran is about to split into pieces.”
Farahanipur, 53, who had become a political activist before fleeing Iran, rattled a series of questions as a gray-colored shark created a lazy loop in the tank behind him. What happens to Iranian civilians if the US attacks spark a wider war? What about the potential loss of Israel’s life? And Americans too? After addressing these heavy questions, he did more work. “What is the gas price tomorrow?”
This is life for Iranian-Americans in Los Angeles, a diaspora made up of the largest non-Iranian community. Like other Iranian-Americans interviewed by The Times, Farahanipur described “very mixed and complicated” feelings about the Iranian crisis. This escalated early Sunday when the US struck three nuclear sites there, participating in Israel’s efforts to disrupt the country’s quest for atomic weapons.
According to the Iranian Data Dashboard, organized by the UCLA Near East Research Center, approximately 141,000 Iranian-Americans live in LA County. The epicenter of the community is Westwood. Here, the neighborhood’s main street of the same name is spotted by a storefront covered in Persian scripts.
On Sunday morning, responses to the news of the conflict were muted in an area called “Tehlangeres,” a reference to the Iranian capital, after welcoming Iranians who had migrated to LA during the Islamic Revolution of 1979. In some shops and restaurants, journalists from CNN, Spectrum News and other outlets outweighed Iranian patrons. Atari sandwich shop, known for its beef tongue sandwiches, the pre-revolutionary Iranian flag hangs near the register, but no diners didn’t want to interview them.
“thank you. [I’m] The middle-aged guest said with a smile.
Kevan Harris, an associate professor of sociology at UCLA, said that US involvement in the military conflict with Iran has been created in meaning and has long been the subject of manual work.
“This scenario looks almost fantastical in a way – it was in the imagination. The United States is about to bomb Iran,” said Harris, an Iranian-American who wrote “Social Revolution: Politics and the Iranian Welfare State.” “For 20 years, this has been discussed regularly.”
Many emigres find themselves torn between deep dislikes and resentments of the authoritarian government they have escaped, and concerns about the family they have left behind. Some of Westwood were happy to chat.
The woman, who asked to be identified only as Mary due to concerns about the safety of her Iranian family, said she had moved five years ago and had visited L.A. with her husband. Chicago residents said last week and a half had been extremely difficult. This is because many of her close relatives, including her parents, still live in Tehran. They recently left the city elsewhere in Iran due to an ongoing attack by Israeli forces.
“I talk to them every day,” Mary (35) said.
Standing outside the Shater Shater Abbass Bakery & Market – the owner who raised the flag of Iran before 1979 also said that Mary was “hope and worry.”
“It’s a very confusing feeling,” she said. “Some people, they’re happy because they don’t like the government – they hate the government,” she said, and others are angry at the destruction of property and the death of civilians.
Mary had planned to visit an Iranian family in August, but it has been scrambled. “Now I don’t know what to do,” she said.
Not too far from Westwood, the prominent Iranian Jewish community in Beverly Hills was a sense of its presence. On Sunday morning, 62-year-old Shahram Javidnia walked near a group of pro-Israel supporters who were staging a procession leading up to the city’s large “Beverly Hills” sign. One of them waved the Israeli flag.
Javidnia, an Iranian Jew who lives in Beverly Hills and opposes the Iranian government, said he is monitoring social media, television and radio for news of the situation.
“Now they are at a weakness,” he said of Iran’s authoritarian leader.
Javidnia came to the United States in 1978 as a teenager. A year before the revolution led to the overthrow of the Shah and the establishment of the Islamic Republic. He settled in the LA area and has not returned since. He said his return was not even something he was thinking about.
“The place I spent my childhood is no longer there,” he said. “does not exist.”
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