Iraqi Americans

Escaping War and Oppression

Iraqi immigration increased somewhat after immigration restrictions were liberalized. Many Iraqis immigrated after the Gulf War in 1991, both Kurds (a minority ethnic group in Iraq) and Shia Muslims who opposed Saddam Hussein's regime. In the 21st century, once the Iraq War began, the U.S. government increased the number of Iraqi refugees who would be admitted from 500 to 7,000 per year. Another 5,000 per year would be allowed to immigrate if they worked for the U.S. government in some capacity during the war or the insurgency. However, neither of those figures has been reached; the State Department has admitted to problems with processing requests quickly and has consistently remained behind in reaching its targets. More than one-third of Iraqi Americans have been granted refugee status either during or after their immigration to the United States.

Although earlier waves of Middle Eastern immigrants had been well educated and in many cases were fluent in English before immigration, and thereby able to become assimilated quickly, the Iraqi immigrants of the turn of the 21st century were very conservative and traditional and resisted assimilation. Some tried to continue practices that are foreign to, or even taboo in, the United States, including arranged marriages of very young girls in order to prevent premarital sex.

It is not necessarily accurate to say that Iraqis are more resistant to assimilation than other groups have been; the Iraqi American story is simply still in an earlier chapter. Many 19th-century immigrant groups were slow to join the melting pot; 200 years later, they are the assimilated “natives” critical of Iraqi immigrants retaining their traditional ways. Another factor is rampant anti-Muslim and anti-Arab sentiment. Although there is a long history of this, it has been especially fierce in the period during which most Iraqi immigration has occurred. Americans as a group have not distinguished well among Arab or Muslim groups, and Iraqis who came to the United States because they opposed U.S. enemy Saddam Hussein were nevertheless received with suspicion by some, even in heavily multicultural, ethnically diverse metropolises.

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