She is. Her father was a doctor working in Iran.
More info:
Jarrett was born in Shiraz, Iran to American parents James E. Bowman and Barbara Taylor Bowman. Her father, a pathologist and geneticist, ran a hospital for children in Shiraz, 1950, as part of a program where American doctors and agricultural experts sought to help jump-start developing countries’ health and farming efforts. When she was five, the family moved to London for one year, returning to Chicago in 1963.
Valerie Jarret’s father-in-law was Vernon Jarret a syndicated columnist for the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun Times as well as Chicago’s ABC-TV.
“Vernon Jarrett, was an associate of Frank Marshall Davis, the controversial labor movement activist who has been identified as an early influence on Obama. Vernon Jarrett and Davis worked together in 1940 in a Communist Party-dominated organization, the Citizen’s Committee to Aid Packing House Workers. The group’s own correspondence, previously uncovered by the New Zeal blog, describes its communist influence. Many of its leaders were tied to the Communist Party.”
http://www.wnd.com/2009/09/109222/