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Reference: Combahee River Collective reading- week 4

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My Parents First apartment in Canada after Immigrating from Iran

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My Parents First apartment in Canada after Immigrating from Iran

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This photo shows one of the first accomplishments my parents achieved as Iranian immigrants. Identifying as both Iranian (a minority race) and Immigrants means that, they both struggled with the challenges that these identities brought them. By showing their first apartment here, I'm pointing out that despite the struggles they faced in this new country, they still did their best to make a life for themselves and overcome the interlocking oppression they faced at this time. Similar to how the women in the Combahee River collective reading (1981) struggled with gender and racial oppression, my parent's struggles were shaped by the different layers of their identity.

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Frightening Stories of the Iranian Revolution in the Backyard

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Frightening Stories of the Iranian Revolution in the Backyard

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I included this image of this table in my home's backyard to reference a memory of mine that takes place here. During the Fourth of July 2020, my brother and I listened to my parents recall the hardships they faced as teens during the Iranian Revolution in the late 1970s. They told us several frightening stories of encounters with the Islamic Militia and memories of hearing the violent protests and bombs. Then, after the stories, a firework went off right behind us scaring my parents.

This image and my memory represent how individuals, especially White Americans, are unaware of the struggles minority immigrants, like my parents, went through and still go through. Those who are ignorant of my parent's life story would just assume they just face struggles related to being a minority and neglect how being an immigrant interacts with their racial struggles. This is a direct reference to the Yamada (1981) reading because she also discusses how Asian women's gender and racial oppression need to become more visible.

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Parents first Apartment in San Diego and first house in San Diego both containing the same Leather Painting from Iran

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Parents first Apartment in San Diego and first house in San Diego both containing the same Leather Painting from Iran

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For this image, in the foreground is an old picture of parents in their first apartment in San Diego. In this older image, in the top right, a leather painting hangs on the walls. Looking in the background of this image, we can see the same leather painting hanging in our current San Diego home.

This image illustrates how even though my Iranian immigrant parents were, through their hard work,  able to move to San Diego and buy a house there, they would still be faced with multiple sources of oppression because of their ethnic and immigrant identity. This leather painting, originally from Iran, represents how my parents still deal with struggles because of their identities despite becoming well established in this country.

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The several parts of a woman of colors' identity can not be separated. 

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The several parts of a woman of colors' identity can not be separated. 

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This image shows me cutting my Paisley leaf necklace with a pair of scissors. The Paisley leaf is a symbol rooted deep in the  Indo-Iranian religion Zoroastrianism.

This photo is a reference to the Yamada reading (1981) because this picture symbolizes how women of color are pushed to choose between their ethnicity and their gender. The whole necklace represents how the many identities of these women are connected and influence each other. The scissors cutting this necklace represents the ignorant individuals who only focus on women of colors' gender struggles while they abandoned how other facets of oppression, like race or immigration, might affect their lives.

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Women in STEM and Overcoming the Patriarchy

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Women in STEM and Overcoming the Patriarchy

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To the left is a photo of my Mom in her research lab while she was completing her Ph.D. at York University in Toronto, Canada.  The right is a photo of me at the Annual Miracle on Main Street, a STEM outreach event, in Downtown Riverside.

I show both my mom and me working in the STEM field because our presence in this male-dominated field directly negates how this patriarchal society thinks of women. In the 1980s, when the left photo was taken, the patriarchal system supported the subordination of women. At this time my mother was both the first in her family to get a Ph.D. and also a woman of color in a Biology Research lab, where the majority of her peers were men. To the right, I then show how I'm combating the gender stereotypes and the patriarchy that still exists today by doing STEM outreach and bringing science to girls of color in Riverside. By showing my mother and I break gender stereotypes that the patriarchy has helped build, I am directly referencing the Johnson (2014) reading.

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The outcome of my parent's intersectional struggles. 

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The outcome of my parent's intersectional struggles. 

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When I was a high school senior applying for colleges, I toured UCR's campus with my brother and Mom. Five years later, I'll be graduating from UCR in spring and my brother starts college this fall.

While this situation is very normal, I think back on the struggles my parents faced being Minority immigrants, However, despite this interlocking oppression not only have they established themselves in this country but also built a life for their family.  Looking that this photo I'm amazed how even though my parents fled an oppressive Islamic government to be in a country with nothing they worked hard to ensure their children were supported and loved.