Large Iranian neighborhoods in US

Google maps recently recognised "Tehrangeles" as a neighbourhood of central Los Angeles. How did this upmarket part of LA become home to the largest community of Iranians outside Iran?

"We're on the map, I mean why shouldn't we be on the map?" says a girl at a hip Los Angeles cafe where young Iranians hang out.

"There's Koreatown, and Chinatown. Why shouldn't we have an area?"

Now they do.

Estimates show anywhere from 300,000 to over half a million Iranians in Southern California, with many living in Tehrangeles.

"Do not engage in any Iranian gossiping if you're not prepared to defend it," says Mahdis Keshavarz, who runs an LA PR agency. "Because everyone here speaks Farsi."
"The first time I came to LA as a student I was on campus and I heard Persian and I turned with that knee-jerk reaction, of 'Wow, cool, another Iranian,'" says Amy Malek, a PhD graduate at UCLA, who studies the Iranian diaspora. 
"And the girl looked me up and down as if to say, 'Why are you staring at me, what's the big deal?' 
"And that's when I realised, OK, you've got a lot of Iranians here." 
The largest concentration of Iranians is around Westwood Boulevard, where most of the shop signs are in Persian and most of the voices you hear are speaking Farsi.

It is adjacent to the affluent Beverly Hills district where 22% of the population is of Iranian descent, and where Iranian "Jimmy" Jamshid Delshad was mayor in 2007 and 2010. 
With almost 40% of the students at the renowned Beverly Hills High School said to be Iranian, studies show that Iranians are one of the best-educated immigrant groups in the US, and they are flourishing as entrepreneurs.
...
There is a strong Iranian community in the Houston area.  My dentist is a very competent young Iranian women who is second generation and all Texas, although she does apparently speak Farsi.   I think the Iranian diaspora is much like the Cuban one.  They tend to be high functioning and ambitious.   Both the Iranian and Cuban revolutions had the effect of sending their best and brightest to this country and we are richer as a result.

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