Seeing Iran from Emeryville, California
 --Voting for many Iranian-Americans in northern California was located in the Hilton Garden Inn, Emeryville CA,  where by coincidence several National Writers Union members, in California for a training session, were also housed this weekend. Turnout was immense, enthusiastic, and dedicated: Hundreds of Iranian-American voters showed up to vote--and stayed, waiting patiently and cheerfully in line for hours, when ballots ran out and six hundred more paper ballots in Farsi and English had to printed, filling the ground-floor lobby of the hotel and spilling out of the front entrance.

I spoke with some waiting voters as families patiently entertained small children, twentysomethings and others filled in the time with cards and cell phones, and people of all ages cruised in and out with supplies of go-cup coffee and snacks. To a man, woman or child, everyone I spoke with or saw was courteous, pleasant and cheerful. They were voting for change, and they were friendly.

The United States has a huge Iranian-American community, and--not to over-generalize--it tends to be a community placing high value on education and quality of life. These people tend to be producers (i.e. individually productive, not film producers). They also love the U.S.

But then, one of the many untold stories or less-told stories about Iran during the darkest days of the 'war on terror', and under at least a couple of administrations prior to 43, is that Iranians generally tend to view America favorably. Admittedly this favorability was placed under strain by past U.S. administrations' support of the Shah--who exploited the vast resources of his country for obscene personal gain and who subjected his people to  political incarceration, torture and execution--fueling the rise of the fundamentalists. But Iranians with access to a broader range of information have always taken a broader view, and a community broadly valuing quality of mind can afford psychically to separate the limited aims of a power clique from the will of the American people as a whole.