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Contribution to Book
Iranian–American Elderly in California’s Santa Clara Valley: Crafting Selves and Composing Lives
Faculty Publications
  • Mary E. Hegland, Santa Clara University
Document Type
Book Chapter
Publication Date
1-1-2006
Publisher
Routledge
Abstract

Describes how Iranian American elderly deal with the challenges of dislocation and cultural disruption, trying to build lives for themselves in a foreign country. Many face depression, but some have been creative, taking advantage of new opportunities, using their own cultural resources and heritage, and trying to find new ways of interacting with grandchildren. Iranian elderly are also a part of the diaspora who left Iran after the revolution and establishment of the Islamic Republic. Most of them were sophisticated, educated and modern individuals while in Iran, and did not wish to stay there in an Islamic Republic but as they generally did not know English and their families here are busy with their American lives, these people find life here to be challenging.

Chapter of
Muslim Diaspora: Gender, Culture and Identity
Editor
Haideh Moghissi
Citation Information
Hegland, M. (2006). Iranian–American Elderly in California’s Santa Clara Valley: Crafting Selves and Composing Lives. In H. Moghissi (Ed.), Muslim Diaspora: Gender, Culture and Identity (pp. 205–219). Routledge.