At a gala Persian New Year's celebration in March, Iranian immigrants in Beverly Hills began to sense that they were bridging a cultural gap.
That evening, the grand ballroom of the Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel was filled with the spicy aroma of shish kebab and rice as more than 1,500 guests--including some of the city's business and civic leaders--were treated to a wide array of Persian food, music, dance and art.
"The strength of our city is based in large part on its cultural diversity," City Councilman Tom Levyn told the crowd.
It was a common theme in many of the speeches, symbolic of how a city not especially known for welcoming huddled masses yearning to breathe free began embracing its Iranian community, which now is the single biggest foreign-language ethnic group in the city.
But then the Beverly Hills Iranians--mainly Jews but also Muslims and Bahais--who escaped the revolutionary chaos and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism 20 years ago in their homeland are not your typical immigrants.
They arrived with more than just the clothes on their backs and a hope for the future. Many had money or at least the skills to have an impact on their plush surroundings. Often drawn by the excellent reputation of Beverly Hills schools and the city's safe image, they crowded into rent-controlled apartments on the south side of town or bought lavish homes in exclusive Trousdale Estates. They brought commercial dollars to the city--by buying or opening trendy boutiques on Rodeo Drive or more workaday mailbox businesses at the city's edge.
Their stamp has been evident in the Beverly Hills Unified School District, where one out of every four students is of Iranian descent. School announcements are printed in Farsi--the foreign language most likely to be spoken in students' homes--as well as in Russian, Korean, Hebrew and Spanish.
But although the Iranians have changed the business and school life of Beverly Hills, they have just started to alter the city's political landscape. As an early sign of that, Iranians in Beverly Hills are joining commissions, taking part in civic organizations and contributing funds to city candidates.
Two years ago, Farshid Shoo-shani came in sixth out of eight candidates in an unsuccessful run for City Council. And last year Soraya Melamed ran unsuccessfully for a seat on the school board. Despite the defeats, the fact that the two Iranian-born candidates ran was considered by many to be significant for the future.
