International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union

 The International Ladies’ GarmentWorkers’ Union improved working conditions for garment makers, most of whom were immigrants. Under the leadership of David Dubinsky, himself an immigrant, the union became recognized as one of the most powerful labor unions in the United States.

Iowa

The interactive relationship between the land, immigration, and settlement patterns in the Iowa region has influenced its history, culture, and institutions.

Iowa: Twentieth Century Developments

After 1900, a coal mining industry began to emerge in Buxton, located in the state’s northern Monroe County.

Iranian immigrants

Iranian immigrants: Revolution and Immigration

Iranian immigrants: Iranians in the United States

Significance: Iranian immigration to the United States is a recent phenomenon and has taken place primarily since 1975. The Islamic fundamentalist revolution of the late 1970’s that transformed Iran into a theocratic state was a major world event that increased Iranian migration to the United States and created some negative stereotypes of Iranians among Americans. Some large Iranian American communities have developed, most notably in the region of Los Angeles.

The first recorded immigrants from Iran to the United States arrived during the 1920’s, when 208 people from Iran (or Persia, as the country was then generally known) came to the United States. Their numbers increased over the next four decades but still remained comparatively small. Immigration and Naturalization Service data show only 9,059 people coming from Iran during the 1960’s. In the 1970’s through the 1990’s, Iranian immigration shot up dramatically. Between 1970 and 1979, 33,763 Iranians immigrated legally to the United States. During the 1980’s, this figure went up to 98,141 and decreased only slightly, to 76,899, during 1990’s. Between 2000 and 2008, 67,915 new residents came from Iran.

*Immigrants who obtained legal permanent resident status in the United States.

Source: Department of Homeland Security, Yearbook of Immigration Statistics, 2008.

By 1980, the Iranian-born population of the U.S. amounted to 130,000 people, compared to only about 24,000 a mere ten years earlier. More than 70 percent of this 1980 population had arrived during the second half of the 1970’s, so they were an extremely new group. They were concentrated on the West Coast, with four out of ten Iranian residents of the United States living in California alone and one out of five living in the Los Angeles-Long Beach metropolitan area. The Iranian-born population continued to expand into the twenty-first century, growing from slightly more than 204,000 in 1990 to more than 290,000 in 2000 and to about 328,000 in 2007.

Carl L. Bankston III

Further Reading

Ansari, Maboud. The Making of the Iranian Community in America. New York: Pardis Press, 1992. Useful overview of the growth of the Iranian immigrant community in the United States. 

Bozorgmehr, Mehdi. "Iran.” In The New Americans: A Guide to Immigration Since 1965, edited by Mary C. Waters, Reed Ueda, and Helen B. Marrow. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2007. Best available short overview of Iranian immigration, written by a highly respected authority on this topic. 

Dumas, Firoozeh. Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America. New York: Villard, 2003. Warmly personal memoir of the experiences of an Iranian American. 

Karim, Perssis, and Mehid M. Khortami, eds. A World in Between: Poems, Stories, and Essays by Iranian-Americans. New York: George Braziller, 1999. Anthology of literary works by Iranian immigrants that illustrate the experiences of Iranians in the United States. 

Naficy, Maid. The Making of Exile Cultures: Iranian Television in Los Angeles. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993. Examination of how Iranian television has influenced group identity in the large ethnic community in Los Angeles. 

Sharavini, Mitra K. Educating Immigrants: Experiences of Second Generation Iranians. New York: LFB Scholarly Publishing, 2004. Emphasizes the importance Iranian immigrants place on education for their children and looks at the relative success of Iranian ancestry students in American schools. 

See also: Arab immigrants; California; Israeli immigrants; Los Angeles; Muslim immigrants; Pakistani immigrants; Refugees; Religions of immigrants.

Iranian immigrants: Revolution and Immigration

Much of the immigration from Iran to the United States resulted from political unrest in Iran and as a consequence of people fleeing the Iranian Revolution of 1978-1979 and the creation of the Islamic Republic in 1980.

Iranian immigrants: Iranians in the United States

By 2007, the geographic concentration of Iranian immigrants had grown greater.

Irish immigrants

During the early nineteenth century, Ireland was one of the main sources of immigration to the United States.

Irish immigrants: Early Irish Immigration

The majority of the Irish in America before the nineteenth century were those who later became known as Scotch-Irish, descendants of people from Scotland who had moved to the northern part of Ireland in earlier centuries.

Irish immigrants: Early Nineteenth Century Immigration

Movement from Ireland to the United States continued into the nineteenth century and began to increase in response to new opportunities.

Irish immigrants: Irish Immigrants during the U.S. Civil War

By 1860, a year before the Civil War broke out, well over 1.5 million people born in Ireland were living in the United States.

Irish immigrants: Immigration During and After the Great Wave

The Civil War was enormously destructive, but it also helped to stimulate the American economy and to push the United States toward more industrialization.

Irish immigrants: Immigration After 1965

During the last three decades of the twentieth century, the United States began welcoming a new great wave of immigrants.

Iron and steel industry

Immigrants to the United States were in many ways responsible for the rise and success of the nation’s large iron and steel industry.

Iron and steel industry: Late Nineteenth Century Immigrants

 The iron and steel industry continued to progress after the U.S. Civil War, and an increasing need for labor corresponded to this growth.

Iron and steel industry: Struggle to Unionize

Many native-born American workers believed that immigrants and their families would not fight against workplace and community injustice on their own accord. . .