Thank you Ajam Media Collective, for asking me to write about my motivation for making “America 1979.”
From the forward by Ajam editor Alex Shams:
The Iran Hostage Crisis was a seminal event in the experiences of thousands of Iranian-Americans. Although many Iranians had settled in the United States in the decades prior to 1979, they had largely blended into the seemingly undifferentiated mass of olive-skinned immigrants who poured in following the repeal of the racialized immigration quotas in 1965.
The Hostage Crisis dramatically transformed how Americans understood Iranians as well as how Iranian-Americans viewed themselves. Once peculiarly exotic, Iranians suddenly emerged as the primary targets of a xenophobic American rage that led to a wave of hate crimes and widespread discrimination.
To read the rest of the article, go to:
http://ajammc.com/2013/08/01/filming-america-1979-iranian-american-memories-of-the-year-our-lives-turned-upside-down/