Professor Karim: Iran Events Reactivating Long-Buried Trauma

HOUSTON CHRONICLE -- Recent events are reactivating long-buried traumas, said Persis Karim, director of the Center for Iranian Diaspora Studies at San Francisco State University. Iranian Americans again find themselves squeezed by two cultures — wrongly stereotyped here and often uncomfortable criticizing what they see happening there.

“It triggers a feeling of ‘we are not seen,’” Karim said. “We have not been able to represent our culture, and who we are in Iran, or in this country, without those stereotypes.”