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The second Persian Parade Day, expected to draw tens of thousands of participants and spectators will be held in New York City in commemoration of the Nowruz, the Persian New Year, along Madison Avenue at 41st street on Sunday March 20, 2005. Due to the event’s overwhelming success last year, the Persian Parade is sponsored in part by the non-profit public Persian-Iranian Parade Foundation. The Parade will once again provide the opportunity to display the immense contributions made by the Iranian American Community in North America. The parade not only exhibits their historical and cultural heritage, but will also proudly...

According to a recent factsheet released by the Iranian Studies group at MIT (ISG) in Cambridge, MA, an independent academic group focusing on social, economic and political issues of Iran and Iranians, the Iranian-American community is among the most educated ethnic groups in the U.S. Based on the census ancestry data, Iranian-Americans have the highest percentage of people with graduate degrees among the 67 ancestry groups covered by the census. More than 26% of Iranian-Americans have Master's degrees or higher, many of them Ph.Ds or MDs. According to the 2000 census, there are 338,000 individuals of primary and secondary Iranian...

Iranian-American tennis superstar is planning to visit his father's native country Iran, the German online daily Netzeitung reported Thursday. "I will also eventually visit Iran which has a special place in my heart," Agassi was quoted as saying in Dubai where he was invited to take part in a pr campaign. Born in the United States, the 34-year-old Agassi has never been to Iran. Agassi's father Mike appeared in the 1948 and 1952 Olympics as a member of the Iranian olympic boxing squad.

Editor's Note: Iranian-American journalists warn that a U.S. attack on Iran would only give the repressive mullahs an excuse to crack down on the Iranian dissident movement. SAN FRANCISCO--Iranian-American media are dismayed though not surprised by the news that the Bush administration is undertaking covert actions in Iran. They warn that an attack on Iran would not promote democracy there or in the Middle East. Writing in the Jan. 20 issue of the New Yorker, leading investigative writer Seymour Hersh charged that the close circle of neoconservatives in the government have solidified their power by sidelining the CIA, launched covert...

Iranian-Americans in the United States are scheduled to meet with the President and other senior executives of arab-bribed National Geographic in Washington on December the 6th to voice their anger at the false alternative of the arabian gulf the American institute has offered for the Persian Gulf. In a rapid two-pronged campaign, many Iranian-American organizations have put intense pressure on National Geographic for its misnaming of the Persian Gulf in its recent World Atlas. Over 10,000 individual letters have been sent by Iranians protesting the publication's in correct references to the Persian Gulf, and have undersigned a petition with over...

In October 2001, Fred Milani's replica of the White House on Briarcliff Road was not quite finished. Still, it was creating a stir in the Oak Grove area north of Clairmont Road as passersby slowed down to gape. In fact, though still in the works, it was the first house profiled in Private Quarters. Interest in the house has not dimmed. We still get the occasional astonished inquiry from people who happen upon the columned home. Recently Fred and Yvonne, his wife of 25 years, invited us on a tour of the elegantly decorated interior. The house is a replica...

Rep. David Wu (D-Ore.), who says he is the first and only Chinese-American to serve in the House, has raised funds from Chinese-Americans across the country. Now, his Iranian-born Republican challenger is using a similar tactic in her own fundraising. Goli Ameri, a telecommunications consultant, has used her connections within the Iranian-American community to raise money for her campaign to unseat the third-term Democrat. Ameri has raised over $550,000 from Iranian-Americans, according to her campaign. Early in the campaign, Tim Phillips, one of Ameri’s opponents in the May 19 primary, suggested that because of her Iranian descent, she would not...

Kermanian, an Iranian Jewish immigrant, is still rawly aware of how people’s lives in his native Iran are under the strict control of Islamist radicals. “We understand what the president is doing, and we support him strongly,” said Kermanian, who stepped down as chairman of the Iranian American Jewish Federation in Los Angeles to join the Bush ’04 campaign team. “Immigrants look at how the world really is, so they no longer support just the Democrats.” It was no surprise, then, when Bush spoke several words of Spanish during his nomination acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention (RNC) in...

Before declaring herself a candidate for Oregon's 1st Congressional District, Goli Ameri made a few discreet inquiries: Would voters accept someone born in Iran, a country that President Bush identified as part of the "axis of evil?" The positive response, she says, was "phenomenal." Today Ameri, who has never held public office, is in a competitive race against three-term incumbent David Wu. After trouncing two opponents in last spring's Republican primary, Ameri is waging a well-financed campaign that portrays Wu as a liberal Democrat out of touch with a district buffeted by economic recession -- be it in high-tech Washington...

I AM A female physician born in Iran, now a U.S. citizen for 17 years, who once voted for Bill Clinton. I strongly believe that President Bush is the better man for the job in this Presidential election. Although I don’t agree with all his decisions, he is tough on terror, great for new jobs and tax cuts and the only choice for effective health care reform. I was one of the lucky voters in Broward County, Fla., in 2000 to vote him into office, and I hope to do it again this year in New Hampshire. Was the war...

Current News & Articles Press Conference on Oct. 14 - Despite Threats, Iranian Expatriots Allege Kerry Campaign Welcomed Terrorist Money U.S. Newswire - Press Release Oct 12, 2004 Despite Threats, Iranian Expatriots Allege Kerry Campaign Welcomed Terrorist Money & Influence; Press Conference Oct. 14 in Washington U.S. Newswire 10/12/2004 4:01:00 PM To: Assignment and National desks, Daybook Editor http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=37979 Contact: Aryo Pirouznia of Student Movement Coordinating Committee for Democracy in Iran, smccdi@daneshjoo.org or 972-504-6864 or Fax: 972-491-9866 News Advisory: When the Student Movement Coordinating Committee for Democracy in Iran (SMCCDI) -- http://www.daneshjoo.org/generalnews/article/publish/article_8640.shtml -- and its coordinator, Aryo Pirouznia, uncovered evidence...

Iran’s growing nuclear threat has activated members of Los Angeles’ Iranian Jewish community to participate in this year’s presidential campaigns and make their voices heard. Political activism is a unique phenomenon for Iranian Jews, who, for 2,500 years in Iran, had been barred from taking part in political activities and had been denied certain civil rights. "It took a while for us [Iranian Jews] to take care of our immediate needs in the U.S.," said Sam Kermanian, one of the co-vice chairs for the George Bush/Dick Cheney 2004 campaign in California. "This is a community that came here as refugees...

The 2004 presidential campaign is shaping up as a season of unprecedented interest and activism among half a million expatriate Iranians who have made Southern California their largest community outside Iran. It turns out that the polarized American electorate is mirrored among voters with Iranian roots. Some of the strongest feelings on all sides of the Iranian American community can be traced to the 2002 State of the Union speech in which Bush declared Iran — as well as Iraq and North Korea — part of "an axis of evil" that threatens world peace. For some Iranian expatriates, the president's...

To some, President Reagan's call for the destruction of the Berlin Wall was a defining moment in the fall of communism. For Saied Assef, President Bush's declaration that his native Iran was part of an axis of evil could be just as important in helping foster democracy in the Middle East. Assef, a Wisconsin delegate to this week's Republican National Convention, said the president's support for democracy in the Middle East has pulled him into this fall's election like never before. Having immigrated from Iran in the 1970s before the rise of the ayatollahs, Assef beliefs the president's Middle Eastern...

Among Sen. John Kerry's top fund-raisers are three Iranian-Americans who have been pushing for dramatic changes in U.S. policy toward the Islamic Republic of Iran. Most prominent among them is Hassan Nemazee, 54, an investment banker based in New York. Nominated to become U.S. ambassador to Argentina by President Bill Clinton in 1999, Nemazee eventually withdrew his nomination after a former partner raised allegations of business improprieties. Nemazee was a major Clinton donor, giving $80,000 to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) during the 1996 election cycle and attending at least one of the famous White House fund-raising coffees.

California has one of the largest Iranian populations of the Iranian Diaspora, estimated at 300,000 to 600,000, and most of these exiles from the 1979 Islamic revolution reside in Los Angeles and Southern California. In fact, the population has grown so dramatically since the 1970s and 80s that to some, Los Angeles is known as Tehrangeles or even Irangeles. As a result of the large, well-educated and successful Iranian immigrant community, Los Angeles boasts 10 Iranian newspapers; numerous Iranian-owned stores, restaurants and other businesses; locally produced Iranian television and radio shows; Iranian yellow pages; and the largest Persian bookstore outside...

Arezou Bakhtjou considers herself typical of young Iranian-American professionals. She is university-educated, works as a licensed real estate broker and expects to enroll at Whittier law school next fall with an eye on becoming a patent attorney. But Bakhtjou is not a typical immigrant: She has been living in the United States for only 18 months. While even most Iranian-Americans consider her story somewhat unusual, she illustrates the rapid success this new local community has experienced in the past 25 years. From the Moshayedi brothers, founders of SimpleTech, a $300-million public company included on Inc. Magazine’s list of the Fastest...

Arezou Bakhtjou considers herself typical of young Iranian-American professionals. She is university-educated, works as a licensed real estate broker and expects to enroll at Whittier law school next fall with an eye on becoming a patent attorney. But Bakhtjou is not a typical immigrant: She has been living in the United States for only 18 months. While even most Iranian-Americans consider her story somewhat unusual, she illustrates the rapid success this new local community has experienced in the past 25 years. From the Moshayedi brothers, founders of SimpleTech, a $300-million public company included on Inc. Magazine’s list of the Fastest...

July 9, 2004- In commemoration of the July 9, 1999 student uprising, the Washington-based anti-regime student group National Coalition of Pro-Democracy Advocates in Iran held several meetings, including a presentation on Iranian student movement at the US Congress building last Wednesday, Nasser Rashidi, the Coalition’s executive director, tells Radio Farda’s Washington correspondent Parichehr Farzam. The presentation, titled “Voices of Democracy in Iran” was hosted in association with the Committee in Support of Referendum in Iran, and was sponsored by US Senators Mary Laudreio (D-Louisiana) and Wayne Allard (R-Colorado), he adds. “In the Senate presentation, several Iranian students in American universities...