Canadians of Iranian descent From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Iranian Canadians or Persian Canadians[3][4] are Canadians of Iranian origin.[5] From the 2016 Canadian census, the main communities can be found in Southern Ontario, British Columbia, and Quebec. As of 2016[update] a total of 97,110 Iranians reside in the Greater Toronto Area,[6] 46,255 in the Greater Vancouver Area,[7] and 23,410 in the Greater Montreal Area,[8] with the remainder spread out in the other major cities of Canada, based on the 2016 Canadian Census. These numbers represent the people who stated "Iranian" as their single or joint ethnic origin in the census survey.
Quick Facts Total population, Regions with significant populations ...
Iranian Canadians ایرانیان کانادایی
Total population
210,405 (2016 census)[1] 0.6% of the total Canadian population (2016) 262,625(Persian-speaking Canadians)[2] 0.7% of the total Canadian population (2021)
Iranian-Canadian is used interchangeably with Persian-Canadian,[9][10][11][12] partly due to the fact[13] that, in the Western world, Iran was known as "Persia". On the Nowruz of 1935, Reza Shah Pahlavi asked foreign delegates to use the term Iran, the endonym of the country used since the Sasanian Empire, in formal correspondence. Since then the use of the word "Iran" has become more common in the Western countries. This also changed the usage of the terms for Iranian nationality, and the common adjective for citizens of Iran changed from "Persian" to "Iranian". In 1959, the government of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Reza Shah Pahlavi's son, announced that both "Persia" and "Iran" could officially be used interchangeably.[14] However the issue is still debated today.[15][16]
While the majority of Iranian-Canadians come from Persian backgrounds, there is a significant number of non-Persian Iranians such as Azeris[17][18][19] and Kurds within the Iranian-Canadian community,[20][21] leading some scholars to believe that the label "Iranian" is more inclusive, since the label "Persian" excludes non-Persian minorities.[20] The Collins English Dictionary uses a variety of similar and overlapping definitions for the terms "Persian" and "Iranian".[22][23]
In 2021, there were 213,160 individuals in Canada who had been born in Iran, of which 70,395 had immigrated to Canada since 2011. Among all Iranian-Canadians, 103,560 (49%) identified as Muslim. Among immigrants since 2011, about 39,860 (57%) identified as Muslim while most of the rest did not identify with any religion.[24]
Canada in 2022 banned ten thousand IRGC seniors and officers from entry.[25]
Iranian celebrities and government former ministers and officials are often mentioned in the news residing or traveling in Canada as well.[26][27][28][29]
Nima Mazhari[fr], painter, photographer and husband of ex-OlympicbiathleteMyriam Bédard, convicted and sentenced in June 2007 for stealing paintings from the late painter Ghitta Caiserman
Various Persian-language media (including TV and newspapers) are active in Canada, including Shahrvand and Salam Toronto, which cover local events as well.[33]
Daha, Maryam (September 2011). "Contextual Factors Contributing to Ethnic Identity Development of Second-Generation Iranian American Adolescents". Journal of Adolescent Research. 26 (5): 543–569. doi:10.1177/0743558411402335. S2CID146592244. ... the majority of the participants self-identified themselves as Persian instead of Iranian, due to the stereotypes and negative portrayals of Iranians in the media and politics. Adolescents from Jewish and Bahaʼi faiths asserted their religious identity more than their ethnic identity. The fact Iranians use Persian interchangeably is nothing to do with current Iranian government because the name Iran was used before this period as well. Linguistically modern Persian is a branch of Old Persian in the family of Indo-European languages and that includes all the minorities as well more inclusively.
Racial and Ethnic Relations in America, Carl Leon Bankston,"Therefore, Turkish and Iranian (Persian) Americans, who are Muslims but not ethnically Arabs, are often mistakenly..", Salem Press, 2000
Darya, Fereshteh Haeri (2007). Second-generation Iranian-Americans: The Relationship Between Ethnic Identity, Acculturation, and Psychological Well-being. pp.3–4. ISBN978-0-542-97374-1. Retrieved 21 December 2016. According to previous studies, the presence of heterogeneity is evident among Iranian immigrants (also known as Persians – Iran was known as Persia until 1935) who came from myriads of religious (Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Armenian, Assyrian, Bahaʼi and Zoroastrian), ethnic (Turk, Kurds, Baluchs, Lurs, Turkamans, Arabs, as well as tribes such as Ghasghaie, and Bakhtiari), linguistic/dialogic background (Persian, Azari, Gialki, Mazandarani, Kurdish, Arabic, and others). Cultural, religious and political, and various other differences among Iranians reflect their diverse social and interpersonal interactions. Some studies suggest that, despite the existence of subgroup within Iranian immigrants (e.g. various ethno-religious groups), their nationality as Iranians has been an important point of reference and identifiable source of their identification as a group across time and setting.
Bozorgmehr, Mehdi (2009). "Iran". In Mary C. Waters; Reed Ueda; Helen B. Marrow (eds.). The New Americans: A Guide to Immigration since 1965. Harvard University Press. p.469. ISBN978-0-674-04493-7.
Elizabeth Chacko, Contemporary ethnic geographies in America // Ines M. Miyares, Christopher A. Airriess (eds.), Rowman & Littlefield, 2007, pp. 325–326