Desiring Place: Iranian "Refugee" Women and the Cultural Politics of Self and Community in the Diaspora

Becoming Immigrant Women: Between Self and Others

Sima was a college-educated, older political refugee, who had been married and divorced and imprisoned in Iran. Although she had never imagined herself actually leaving Iran, there was no chance of her living there freely anymore, and she optimistically anticipated the new possibilities awaiting her, maintaining she had never felt she was really "at home" in Iran. Shiva was a younger, less middle class, less-educated refugee than Sima, but also affiliated with a political organization in Iran. She imagined many possibilities for herself too, but unlike Sima she was also quite nostalgic for the culture and ties she was leaving behind. Coming to Europe and North America after the revolutionary events in Iran (1979-1982), refugee and immigrant women, especially those who had been politically active, were eager to take advantage of the new opportunities they expected to find. The initial priorities of newly arrived refugee women I interviewed usually revolved around their desires for more education or careers. However, women like my friends Sima and Shiva were to discover that re-fashioning and creating a "place" for themselves was not just a matter of pursuing personal aspirations. They would confront the challenges of not only integrating disparate memories into some workable notion of the present self, but also negotiating around a variety of images of themselves, conveyed through a myriad of encounters and social relationships.

From the narratives of Sima and Shiva, and other refugee women I first began interviewing in 1987-88, I came to understand some of the dilemmas facing Iranian refugee women in balancing their own yearnings with the expectations and demands placed on them by the Iranian and non-Iranian communities with which they interacted. Although their narratives differ from one another, reflecting their unique backgrounds — one accompanied to Germany by a child and the other one arriving single in Canada — like many women who had been politically active and not unfamiliar with women's issues, they were now amazed at their own previous lack of attention to gender inequities in their political organizations. In exile, they devoted new energy to working on women's issues in different refugee women's organizations. It may be said that such politically conscious women are somewhat distinctive. Still, despite very different backgrounds and experiences in Iran and arriving in different host country contexts, like Canada and Germany, other Iranian women in exile similarly found that their expectations were challenged and compromised and they too joined some of the women's organizations and clubs.

While they generally envisioned societies in Europe and North America as places where they could create their own identities and find new opportunities, they faced daunting difficulties in their quest for meaningful personal and community life. Responsibilities for the community and household, with few immediate childcare options or domestic supports, are only a part of the continuing challenges as well as opportunities they confront in renegotiating gender relations and identities. Iranian women refugees are engaged in the project of reconstructing themselves, looking for ways creatively to balance commitment to family and community with pursuit of self-definition. This is revealed through their attempts (and strategies) to build social networks that provide both support from their membership in collective life and relief from the limitations that are often imposed on individual choices by those very social relations.

Despite great hopes for designing new lives for themselves, both Sima and Shiva encountered obstacles along their way. Sima became controversial in Iranian circles, beginning with her public positions on feminism and Iranian politics. Shiva was ostracized over her principled stands on the cases of several Iranians engaged in extralegal activities, including a family member, who were supported by the rest of the community. Previously active in a number of Iranian and multicultural organizations where she also had disappointing experiences she attributed to being "different," Sima became more independent of both, pursuing her own tastes. Shiva, whose international circle of friends sometimes failed to come through for her, also distanced herself from her previous affiliations in the community to take up...