On the morning of November 11, 1979, exactly one week after the Iranian revolutionaries climbed up the US Embassy walls in Tehran and took 62 Americans hostage, a group of American high school students in Denver, Colorado, armed with baseball bats and beer bottles went looking for Iranians to beat up. They went inside an apartment building where a 20-year-old electrical engineering student, Afshin Shariati and his pregnant American wife lived. They looked at the mailboxes outside the apartment complex and found his apartment number.
As they threw beer bottles shattering his apartment window challenging him to come out, Afshin grabbed his shotgun, came out and shot and killed one of the teenagers and wounded two more. The rest ran away. Afshin was arrested and was tried later in 1980.
A few days earlier and shortly after the US Embassy was overrun by the Iranian students in Tehran, President Jimmy Carter went on TV and announced to the American people that there were more than 50,000 Iranian students studying in the US and he had ordered the FBI to interview and register every single one of them, and those with any visa problems will be sent in front of the immigration judge and deported.
In a matter of hours and days, the American public which was subjected to around-the-clock news and disturbing images from their embassy in Tehran realized that there were 50,000 of “them” living among “us” and the Iranian students in the US who had nothing to do with the events in Iran and the majority of them condemned the hostage-taking became the subject of attention by the Americans.
Within 2 months following the announcement, the FBI interviewed 50,437 students, 41,254 of whom were in compliance and 405 had applied for asylum. They found 6,042 deportable, with some 3,200 who’d not produced enough information at the time of their interviews.
Over the months that followed, Iranian students were harassed, beaten, deported, denied entry into discotheques and clubs, and even the famous whorehouse in Reno, Mustang Ranch had a big sign in the front, “No Iranians Allowed!”
Overnight, the Iranians were called I-ranians just as a way of putting them down and ridiculing them; to which the Iranian students in the US responded and started calling themselves, Persians!
Afshin Shariati was tried in court in late 1980. His lawyer argued that a man’s home is his castle and he should be able to defend it. It did not take the jury too long to acquit him of all charges and everyone agreed that he had every right to defend his wife, his child and his home.
Now, 40 years later, as I am looking at the massacre of the Mexicans and others in El Paso, I can’t help but compare these events. I am sure that Jimmy Carter did not mean to send a bunch of crazy lunatic losers armed with bottles and bats after us, but his words were heard by some and we were in their crosshair. It doesn’t matter what a US President says or does not say, what’s important is what’s being heard by the people living in the darkest parts of the country or the internet equipped with AR-15’s and AK-47’s.
Afshin was lucky that he was armed and could defend himself and his family against bottles and bats. The fact that he was married to an American wife also helped him not get charged with some bogus weapon charges.
The Mexicans and the Latinos in El Paso were not as lucky.
I was in college during that time. The worst I got was someone tried to scare me (or actually run me over) one time as I tried to cross one of the capmus roads. he did not stop for us to dicsuss the matter.
The question is what would happen now to us eye-ranians if a conflict breaks out between the mullahs and americans?
It hits all of us much harder when the discrimination/act of violence is directed squarely at us but it is important to note that we all ought to stand up and reject hate, racism and bigotry whether is it direct at us or others.
As the famous expression says;
First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me
Great blog and sad to see America under the leadership of a charlatan
Our politicians had resisted pissing on the office of Presidency, tRump fixed that.
tRump is helping to make Russia great again
Reject occupation, If the bar code starts with 7 29 put it back on the shelf
Buy American, say NO to Chinese madeTrump
“The time is always right to do what is right” – Martin Luther King
Violence has been a part of this country from its inception so nothing new despite all the whining. I said before and say it again, every law abiding person needs to get a gun license and eventually buy a gun. The country is becoming darker (Literally and physically) and even if law and order does not break down, there will never be enough police force to be at a right place at the right time to protect you.
Here is a passage from the book "Mad as Hell":
In this respect, the President was undoubtedly in tune with the mood of the nation. In Beverly Hills, local youths attacked Iranian students with baseball bats, putting some of them in the hospital. In Riverside, California, an Iranian student was found shot to death in what the police called an "execution." In Houston, protesters burned the Iranian flag in front of the country's consulate; at St. Louis University, security guards had to disarm a man toting a shotgun and asking where he could find the Iranian students. "No more Iranian students permitted on these premises until the hostages are released." read a sign at the Mustang Ranch, a brothel near Reno.
"every law abiding person needs to get a gun license and eventually buy a gun."
Sounds like taking a page out of the NRA and gun industry book
The whole notion that the violence has been part of this country from the beginning and therefore must accept and embrace it as the norm is nothing but BS.
With that mind set, we should go back to the 1700 practices in every aspect and perhaps reintroduce slavery.
Our politicians had resisted pissing on the office of Presidency, tRump fixed that.
tRump is helping to make Russia great again
Reject occupation, If the bar code starts with 7 29 put it back on the shelf
Buy American, say NO to Chinese madeTrump
“The time is always right to do what is right” – Martin Luther King
As the Congress goes on vacation till September and Trump is going to play golf for the next 10 days, Latino children will walk to school in fear wondering if they or their parents will be massacred by armed crazy lunatics. So what we do?
Smile at your Mexican gardener, babysitter, caretaker or maid. Thank the Mexican guy who is making your favorite Persian food at the restaurant and let them know that you are with them and their nightmare will be over by next November. America is better than this.
Oh how I remember those dreadful days in college when one night a drunk neighbor busted our apartment door open and stumbled in with a .22 rifle in his hand. We managed to escape out the back to our friend's house and call the police. In defense of our lives, I would have done what Afshin did in CO. Too bad I didn't have my Baretta 9mm back then.