Gender, Madness, Religion, and Iranian-American Identity: Observations on a 2006 Murder Trial in Williamsport, Pennsylvania

Abstract

Using participant observation, oral history interviews, and a study of court transcripts, Internet chats, and press coverage of a 2006 murder trial of an Iranian-American man in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, we can better appreciate the dynamic intersection of ethnicity, religion, and gender in constructing the social identity of Iranian-Americans. Brian Hosayn Yasipour, who immigrated to the United States in 1969, was convicted of murder in the third degree for killing his four-year-old daughter in 2001 during a custody dispute with his estranged, Iranian-born wife. He managed to avoid the death penalty. Debates about his guilt in America hinged on assessments of his mental state at the time of the crime and this, in turn, hinged on debates about how normative his actions would have been in Iran. Until his arrest, Brian had led a highly mobile life-moving back and forth between America, where he lived as a Christian, and Iran, where he visited as a Muslim. Was he a calculating Iranian-Islamic patriarch, outraged at the defiance of his wife and the attitudes of American courts toward his paternal rights? Or was he, per the court transcripts, a "white Christian" and survivor of childhood rape back in Iran, who lapsed into madness under the strain of his second divorce? Brian actively blurred these issues in court appearances before and after the murder-often expressing his agency in terms of preserving his imaginary and physical mobility.Keywords: Iran; America; immigration; Muslim; filicide; gender; identity; mobility; Islamophobia; homophobia 1. Introduction OverviewIn this study I make use of a "regimes of im/mobility" approach (Schiller and Salazar 2013;Hackl et al. 2016) to analyze how ethnic identity, religious identity and gender ideology influenced the trial of an Iranian-American man in Williamsport, Pennsylvania for murder. Trial transcripts clearly illustrate how both the defense and prosecution exploited the ambiguity of Brian Yasipour's identity to bolster arguments for and against the proposition that Brian was legally insane at the time of the crime. But they also illustrate that Brian himself did not simply exist in a liminal state-not quite American, not quite Iranian-but deliberately moved between Iranian and American contexts both physically and conceptually from the time he arrived in the United States in 1969 until his arrest. He continued to assert his mobility conceptually while incarcerated, both before and after his conviction.This study is also based on my observations as a pro bono consultant to pre-trial preparations of Brian's attorneys from [2004][2005][2006], interviews with a number of participants conducted between 2010 and 2014, local media coverage, and the Internet postings of individuals who monitored the trial. These sources clearly illustrate the instability of the social categories applied to Brian Yasipour and his family by the Court and local community. The trial accomplished a sort of judicial assimilation 2008, para. 7-8). The words "Iran," "Iranian" or "immigr...

Gender differences in the professional experiences of Iran specialists in American academia

“…Although the questionnaire was not wholly focused on these questions and was more broadly based in design, differences in attitudes based on gender and ethnic identity came into view in our results. There is, of course, a growing body of literature on Iranian-Americans, most of which considers specific geographical contexts (Amin 2017 ; Chaichian 1997 ; Hanassab 1998 ; Honey 1978 ; Mobasher 2012 ), major demographic trends (Bozorgmehr 1998 ; Bozorgmehr and Ketcham 2018 ; Elahi 2006 and 2008 ; Foltz 2009 ; Higgins 2004 ; Lotfalian 2009 ; Mahdi 1998 ; Modarres 1998 ; Ronaghy et al 1976 ) and the intersection of culture and identity (Amine 2018 ; Bennett 2008 ; Darznik 2010 ; Hoffman 1989a , 1989b , Karim and Khorrami 1999 ; Karim 2006 ; Maghbouleh 2018 ; Malek 2006 ; Mostofi 2003 ; Motlagh 2008 ). Our project is the first to focus on the community of scholars that would include those working on Iranian-Americans or Iranians in the diaspora.…”