Los Angeles is also notable for its very large Iranian Jewish communities in Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, Encino, and Calabasas.
With population estimates of 700,000, Southern California boasts the largest concentration of Iranians in the world, outside of Iran.
[4][5] Many Iranian immigrants, including Muslims, Zoroastrians, Christians, and Jews, originated from the upper classes.
[8] A person quoted in Translating LA stated that Iranians in Los Angeles had "a wish to be invisible, which may have stemmed from the anti-Iranian feeling during the U.S. hostage episode.
"[9] Over the years, the Iranian community expanded across Southern California, with large numbers settling in Beverly Hills, the San Fernando Valley, Irvine and greater Orange County, as well as the Inland Empire.
[17] The 15-year-long Lebanese Civil War that started in 1975 and the Iranian revolution of 1979 greatly contributed to the influx of Middle Eastern Armenians to the US.
[18] The Armenian communities in these Middle Eastern countries were well established and integrated, but not assimilated, into local populations.
Many lived in luxury in their former countries, and more easily handled multilingualism, while retaining aspects of traditional Armenian culture.
[6][21][22][23] Jimmy Delshad, who became the Mayor of Beverly Hills, stated that around 1959 there were around 10 or 12 Persian families in the Los Angeles area.
In the 1970s members of the Mahboubi family settled in Beverly Hills and began buying real estate on Rodeo Drive.
The Beverly Hills Unified School District, the established Jewish community, security, and the reputation for wealth attracted Iranian Jews to Beverly Hills, and a commercial area of the city became known as "Tehrangeles" due to Iranian ownership of businesses in the Golden Triangle.
IAJF is a leading organization in their efforts to fight local and global Antisemitism, protect Iranian Jews domestically and abroad, promote a unified community, participating in social and public affairs, provide financial and psychosocial assistance to those in need through philanthropic activities, and more.
[26] In addition to those places Iranians also live in Santa Monica, West Los Angeles, and Westwood.
[14] Halleh Ghorashi, author of Ways to Survive, Battles to Win: Iranian Women Exiles in the Netherlands and United States, wrote in 2003 that "The majority of Iranians living in Los Angeles have an extremely nationalistic approach toward Iran.
[6]: 4 As of 2009 many older Iranian women in the Los Angeles area still practice doreh, where they have large gatherings where they enjoy entertainment, talk, and eat.
Kevin West of W Magazine stated that the increase in working hours of Iranian women in the region could threaten this custom.
Dozens of Persian-language satellite channels are produced in the Los Angeles area, with many of them beamed back to Iran.
Claudia Der-Martirosian, Georges Sabagh, and Mehdi Bozorgmehr, authors of "Subethnicity: Armenians in Los Angeles," wrote that "Although women, generally, had a lower educational achievement than did men, internal differences among subgroups were comparable to those of the Armenian men.