Iranians, just as other migrant and exilic communities, experience liminality and in-betweenness.Footnote 1 However, as discussed by interviewees, life in Spain has specific cultural aspects that ease the experiences of Iranians new to this territory. In particular, food, perceived hospitality, and linguistic expressions function as an embodiment of shared cultural sensitivity that mitigate feelings of nostalgia and estrangement. Based on fieldwork carried out between June 2019 and July 2024, primarily in Madrid, the narratives analyzed in this paper offer a view of Iranians’ migration processes and the social and cultural connections they perceive between Iran and their host country.Footnote 2 All interviews conducted were semistructured and in-depth, and performed in Spanish and Persian. During this period, a total of thirty-nine people of Iranian origin were interviewed, of whom thirty-four were first generation (immigrants) and five were second generation (the children of immigrants). Five academic experts also were interviewed.Footnote 3 Among the first generation, twenty-five were women and twelve were men; most were between 40 and 70 years old, with the exception of five (four female and one male) octogenarians. Among the second-generation interviewees, four were female and one was male, between 20 and 49 years of age. Although this paper includes excerpts from only some of the interviewees, the paper draws from all the narratives collected. The views expressed by the interviewees do not reflect the wide diversity of opinions that are present among Iranians in Spain. I acknowledge the limitations that are present when research is in the early stages and I am aware of my own positionality having shaped data collection and interpretation.
After a discussion of the main characteristics of the Iranian diaspora, the paper focuses on the voices of the subjects interviewed, who provide details about the Iranian community in Spain, including motivations for emigration from Iran and immigration to Spain; the shift from migratory transit to home-making; the importance of generations; and links between the diaspora and Iran. These sections of the article provide firsthand data on the migration of Iranians to Spain with the objective of expanding the scarce work that exists on this topic. Finally, the paper centers on the cultural and social connections between Spain and Iran and how they have impacted negotiations of belonging across three interlinked spheres: hospitality and public social interactions; language and expressive culture; and gastronomy.
The Iranian Diaspora
It is difficult to know how many people of Iranian origin live outside Iran. Estimates range between three and seven million.Footnote 4 Although Iranian migration to the United States dates back to the 1920s, the Iranian diaspora as a community began to form in the 1950s, particularly in the United States and the United Kingdom.Footnote 5 A number of Iranians, mostly middle- and upper-class men, left their country between the 1950s and the late 1970s with the aim of training at Western university institutions, in many cases with funding from the Pahlavi government.Footnote 6 The country’s program for modernization and industrialization in the 1960s and 1970s led many Iranians to leave their country in search of technical skills and advanced education.Footnote 7 These initial migratory steps laid the foundations for the important migratory links that continue to this day between Iran and the United States and United Kingdom.
The Iranian diaspora is considered in academic literature to be a “diaspora generated by conflict,” because most people emigrated from the country against their wishes due to sociopolitical events related to the revolution that led to the fall of the Pahlavi monarchy and the establishment of the Islamic regime in 1979.Footnote 8 Although the revolution has been central to classifying this diaspora as one generated by conflict, it is important to highlight the relationship that this community has had with conflicts in a broader and more enduring sense. These include the Iran–Iraq War (1980–88) and more modern sociopolitical events, such as the impact of the Green Movement in 2009, protests in 2017, 2018, and 2019, and the Women, Life, Freedom uprisings (2022–23).
The Iranian Revolution, one of the most studied sociopolitical events in modern Middle Eastern history, unfolded between 1977 and 1979 through popular uprisings involving various sectors of Iranian society. This civil resistance struggle had important transnational links to the diaspora, such as the support of the Confederation of Iranian Students in the United States and Europe, including in Spain, and the pivotal role of Khomeini, who was then in exile.Footnote 9 Rather than delving into the intricacies of the Iranian Revolution, I instead highlight two of its pertinent characteristics: these transnational ties and the key role of Iranian civil society in the uprisings. The establishment of a regime that proved to be more dictatorial and violent than the previous one—an unexpected result for those who had desired the fall of the Pahlavi dictatorship—led to the forced departure of a large number of Iranians between 1979 and the early 1980s.Footnote 10 Many people who had lived in the United States or United Kingdom in previous decades returned to those countries, joining the first wave of Iranians who had migrated in the fifties, sixties, and seventies and taking advantage of established contacts. Others migrated to Canada, to Western and Northern European countries, and also to Southern Europe, including Spain.
Authors have identified several waves of Iranian migration. In his deterministic approach to explaining the complex history of the Iranian diaspora, Reza Gholami describes three migratory phases.Footnote 11 Whereas the first, as previously explained, occurred between 1950 and 1977, the second and most important flow of Iranians took place after the 1979 revolution; by the end of that year alone, approximately 500,000 Iranians had managed to leave their country of origin. Gholami’s third phase of Iranian emigration, which he argues is ongoing, began in 1995 during Rafsanjani’s presidency and is characterized as emigration caused by political conditions and an economy that is deteriorating. This third phase has involved sectors of the population with lower socioeconomic status and those located in the peripheries of the country.Footnote 12 The 2009 protests of the Green Movement were associated with another spike in Iranian emigration due to heavy repression by security forces.Footnote 13
Considering the centrality of politics in diaspora construction at large, the role played by the Iranian Revolution in the formation of this specific diasporic community, even after four decades, continues to loom large.Footnote 14 One of the most extensive edited collections on this diaspora, which draws together case studies conducted in the United States, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Italy, Australia, France, and the United Arab Emirates, reveals that this Iranian diaspora has remained actively connected at the political level to its country of origin.Footnote 15 The memories of first-generation immigrants often are divided between events that occurred before and after 1979. For many in the first generation, the trauma of the revolution is present in feelings of nostalgia for the Pahlavi era, which, in conjunction with postmigration pressures, has led to a heightened sense of pride in being part of a millennia-old Persian past that distinguishes them from other Middle Eastern immigrants.Footnote 16
Iranians in Spain
In the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries, diplomatic relations between Iran and Spain were “intermittent.”Footnote 17 Later, they were strengthened by the rapprochement between General Francisco Franco and Reza Shah Pahlavi in the 1970s due to the economically favorable situation in both countries and their similar positions regarding the Cold War.Footnote 18 A sign of the relationship between the Franco and Pahlavi regimes was the removal of the visa requirement for travel between Iran and Spain achieved through the signing of a bilateral agreement in effect between 1967 and 1982.Footnote 19 Diplomatic relations between the two countries also were harmonious during and after the Islamic revolution and were especially positive during the reformist period (1997–2005).Footnote 20 The recent Woman, Life, Freedom protests have marked a shift in the foreign relations that had existed between the two countries since the Iranian Revolution. This was palpable in the official condemnation by the Spanish government of the repression carried out by Iranian authorities.Footnote 21
The official data available through the Instituto Nacional de Estadística (Spanish National Institute of Statistics) do not allow for a sufficiently in-depth view of the migration of Iranians to Spain prior to 1998.Footnote 22 In the 1950 census data, under the category of place of birth, specifically in Asia, the only option listed was the Philippines.Footnote 23 All other Asian areas were categorized as “other countries,” making it impossible to disaggregate further.Footnote 24 The 1960 census also does not specify location beyond “foreigners.”Footnote 25 Ten years later, the 1970 census listed just 122 Iranians living in Spain among the foreign population, of whom 62 were men and 60 were women.Footnote 26 In 1981 and 1991 Iran again was not listed as a country of birth category for foreign-born persons, although this absence in the census data does not reflect an absence of Iranians in Spain.Footnote 27 In fact, an article from the country’s most important national newspaper, El Pais, revealed that in 1982 there were around 1,000 permanent residents and 50,000 temporary residents of Iranian origins in Spain.Footnote 28 According to the same source, the number of migrants from Iran had been increasing in the previous three years, confirming the Iranian Revolution as a primary marker of the second wave of Iranian migration to Spain.
The data from the Spanish National Institute of Statistics available from 1998 onward makes it possible to distinguish the number of Iranians residing in Spain (both those who maintained their Iranian nationality and those who acquired Spanish nationality), according to age, sex, and province of residence. The presence of Iranian-born persons after 1998 increased dramatically, from 2,532 in 1998 to 13,863 in 2024 (Table 1).Footnote 29 The data reflect the characteristics of Iranian migration globally in their tendency to settle in larger urban areas, especially in Madrid, where the largest number of Iranians reside (from 967 in 1998 to 4,333 in 2024).Footnote 30 The two next largest Iranian communities are located in Barcelona (348 in 1998 and 2,872 in 2024) and Malaga (387 in 1998 and 2,705 in 2024).Footnote 31
Iranian-Born Population in Spain
Sources: Spanish National Institute of Statistics; Cembrero, “El restablecimiento del visado.”
Although Spain was not a preferred destination in the first phase of emigration (prior to 1977), the lack of a visa requirement created a pathway for the growth of Iranian immigration to Spain that took place directly after the 1979 revolution. In response to this new flow, the visa requirement was imposed again in 1983, precisely to curb the entry of Iranians.Footnote 32 Another draw to Spain for Iranians during this period was the fact that Spain did not adopt the economic sanctions imposed by the United States on Iran during the hostage crisis (November 4, 1979 to January 20, 1981), although most Iranians in this period considered Spain a transit country that would allow them to reach other destinations in Western or Northern Europe, or even North America, where greater historical connections and better economic conditions awaited migrants, for the people interviewed in this study Spain became a more permanent host, and ultimately their new home.Footnote 33
Motives for Iranian Migration to Spain: Freedom and Hope
The sociopolitical motives that lie at the root of Iranian migration to the West are directly linked to the conflicts of the late twentieth century. When recalling their reasons for emigrating from Iran, several of my informants described the desire for more freedom. In their interviews in 2019 Nima and Kian expressed a need for “a space where we feel freer to breathe … more freedom.” Both Nima and Kian’s experiences are particularly representative of this sentiment; they belong to very different strata in the Iranian diaspora in Spain, but nevertheless share this initial motivation. Nima was one of the very first Iranians to arrive in Spain right after the revolution in 1979. She arrived in Madrid at the age of fourteen with her sister, brother, and parents, the latter of whom were close to the Pahlavi family and considered themselves monarchists. Kian, on the other hand, although also belonging to the first generation, arrived in Madrid in the late 1980s and is not a monarchist, although he also believes the Islamic Republic has not provided the Iranian population with more justice after the revolution. In short, despite representing different political positions, my interviewees expressed a desire for human dignity and human freedoms as the central reason for forcefully leaving their country.Footnote 34 For Nima and Kian, the freedom they found lacking in Iran after the revolution they later discovered in Spain.
But this newfound freedom did not necessarily result in an improvement in economic status. Identifying himself as a first-generation Iranian monarchist, Anoush stated that the “lack of freedom” that he felt in Iran was central to his decision to leave the country in the mid-1980s.Footnote 35 His middle-class origins have not prevented Anoush from having financial drawbacks in his country of settlement. At the time of our interview in 2019, he was self-employed in the information technology industry, and lacked economic stability because his income fluctuated monthly. Despite this, Anoush valued the social freedoms that life in Spain provided. Nima’s brother, another example, had a very high position in Iran Air prior to migration, but in Spain he never found a similar job. Instead, he worked long hours as a waiter in restaurants and did manual labor. Nevertheless, the sense of freedom he and his family felt in Madrid compensated for the loss of their previous level of income and employment.
Migration from conflict-stricken territories leads to multiple reasons for migration.Footnote 36 For Iranians, reasons to leave their territory of origin have remained consistent across the last five decades. Azam arrived in Madrid in the last decade and currently works as a volunteer in an NGO in Madrid. She stated in her interview in 2022 that the recent motivation for many Iranians who are leaving remains the lack of political, religious, and gender freedoms in Iran.Footnote 37 This was echoed by Haideh, who has lived with her Iranian husband in Northern Spain after initially immigrating in the early 1980s. She has been an informal provider for newcomers in the Iranian migrant network.Footnote 38 In our 2021 interview, she described how she not only has helped provide new arrivals with the basics so that they can find their way around the city, but also often acts as an emotional support for them. When referring to more recent arrivals, she too described a lack of freedom, but also the sociopolitical state of affairs that has led to despair: “They have come because of a lack of hope.”Footnote 39 This lack of hope and freedom aligns with the idea that the Iranian population has long struggled for social, civil, and economic rights within a “cycle of hope” that is interrupted by external and internal geopolitical forces.Footnote 40
From Temporary Residence to Home
Apart from those who migrate directly to North America or other countries in Europe, often Iranians who come to Spain initially view Spain as either a temporary stop until the Iranian sociopolitical situation permits return, or as a transit country rather than a permanent destination. It is worth noting that, in contrast to other European countries, Spain was considered a country of emigration until the 1990s, when it joined the European Union.Footnote 41 Several first-generation respondents reported that their initial intention upon entering Madrid was to stay only long enough to obtain the necessary permits to continue onward to countries such as the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, or Sweden.
Ziba, a first-generation Iranian Baha’i, described this intention in her interview. Ziba had been forced to leave Iran with her mother shortly after Khomeini came to power. Practitioners of the Baha’i faith were being persecuted, and Ziba had been expelled from her school because of the faith practiced by her parents. Shortly after arriving in Spain, Ziba’s mother, who intended to return to her home country, received a telegram warning her that she would be executed if she returned to Iran.Footnote 42 Although it had been her family’s goal to reach the United States, when they finally managed to obtain a US visa after living in Spain for five years, they decided instead to stay in their Spanish city. Ziba had been a grade-A student in Iran had continued to shine in the Spanish educational system. The hard work that she had put into her studies in Spain, including having to learn Spanish and adapt to the education system, played a key role in their decision. Although for Ziba and her family remaining in Spain probably meant foregoing improvements in their economic status, the emotional and social roots that they had increasingly developed in the region made it worth staying.
Others, such as Shaheen, highlighted a preference for the quality of life possible in Spain given its location on the European continent as well as its climatic and geographic features. Shaheen had worked in the public sector before leaving Iran. He arrived in Madrid in 1997, where he continued his higher education studies and currently occupies a teaching position in a public university. Although Shaheen originally thought of Spain as a transit country and was open to the possibility of migrating to the United States, he finally decided to stay in Spain. In our interview, conducted in 2019, Shaheen was clear about the importance to him of Spain’s proximity to the rest of Europe, along with “the sun, the [local] people and nature.”Footnote 43 Similarly, Anoush shared that he had intended to migrate to Sweden from Spain, but that after two trips there he realized that he felt more comfortable in Spain, even though he was aware that Sweden had better political and economic infrastructures than Spain.
The comfort expressed by Ziba, Shaheen, and Anoush is related to the similarities in the cultural and social sphere that several interviewees pointed out in their narratives. Connections with the host country facilitate integration and settlement, and strengthen the possibilities of building a home after migration. Prior to migrating to Spain, Azam had lived in Sweden for two and a half years. In our 2022 interview, she shared that she preferred to live in Spain because she found it easier to have a social life, especially in Madrid: “It is impossible not to make friends in Spain.” When asked about the differences between living in Iran and Spain, she considered the latter country more secure for women: “As a woman I feel more secure in Spain.” Ultimately, for Azam, the freedom that is attached to that sense of security that characterizes her life as an Iranian woman in Madrid means that she feels at home: “To feel good in a country is to feel at home.”Footnote 44
Another interviewee, Firoozeh, had to leave Iran for safety reasons due to her involvement in the Green Movement; she has lived in Madrid since 2009. In this city she has developed socially as well as professionally, stating “Spain allows you to put down roots.” When reflecting on her life in Iran and the possibility of ever returning, she said, “Right now for me to go back to Iran would be another emigration … what would I do with my people?”.Footnote 45 There comes a time, as Firoozeh pointed out, when leaving Spain to return to Iran can be seen as another emigration. For her, the circle of local friends that she has built in her new home makes return feel not only undesirable but impossible. Social relations with the local Spanish population are at the center of making her home in Spain.
Identity Formation
As my interlocutors explained to me, the capacity for adaptation and the flexibility Iranians display in their new homes (“we adapt very well to the place where we arrive”) is frequently attributed to the historical view of the Persian Empire and the mix of cultures that coexisted peacefully during those times, and during the Pahlavi monarchy.Footnote 46 This discourse is associated with the imperial nostalgia in which much of the Iranian diaspora is immersed.Footnote 47 Regardless of political positioning, the nostalgia for Pahlavi times, which also is strengthened in media of the Iranian diaspora, makes most first-generation Iranians in Spain identify with these flexible and easy-going characteristics.
Although my interlocutors’ adaptation to Spain in a broad sense is undeniable, transitional accounts were nevertheless prevalent among the first-generation Iranians I interviewed, especially among the earlier arrivals in Spain. Their stories are dominated by liminality, feeling they belong “neither here nor there”: neither in Iran, nor in Spain. Authors such as Stuart Hall, Paul Gilroy, Gloria Anzáldua, and Avtar Brah each have written extensively about the liminality in migrant identities, and experienced even more by diasporic and exilic migrants.Footnote 48 For example, Nima talks about her mother and father, Amina and Mehdi, with whom she arrived in Madrid in 1980, when they were already in their forties. She connects their stories with her own, and with those of other Iranians who arrived in Spain when they were youths:
They’re in their early forties, so in a way that mature exile ended up meaning to be excluded from society for good—there isn’t enough time for the deep adaptation that a younger person might manage. And even then, that younger person, no matter how open they are, always has certain lacks, certain voids they don’t even understand—they don’t know where they come from or how to fill [those voids]. In truth, they feel they belong everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Perhaps they feel comfortable among people from their country of origin, and also feel at ease with people from the country they’ve arrived in, their adoptive country—but deep down, they’re divided. Footnote 49
This sense of feeling divided, or in-between, also was shared by Shaheen. The in-betweenness he feels in his identity as a migrant has never left him:
There comes a point when you’re neither Iranian in Iran, nor Spanish in Spain. You become something in between the two cultures… . You’re not that fond of ghorme sabzi, nor of paella… . You end up as something caught between the two. You used to really enjoy the food your mother used to make, and now you don’t like it quite as much. You’re neither Iranian in Iran, nor Spanish in Spain.Footnote 50
Double-consciousness is apparent in the previous as well as the following accounts. The concept of double-consciousness, originally put forward by Du Bois and later expanded by Hall, refers to the possibility of belonging in two places.Footnote 51 Hall delved into his experience as a Black Jamaican in Britain, the constant feeling of being “in-between” worlds (Jamaica and Britain, colonial and postcolonial) and not completely part of one or the other, therefore both familiar and a stranger.Footnote 52 In other words, feeling connection to both countries at all times, whether being physically in one or the other.
Keyvan arrived in Spain in 1980 at just over twenty years old. After living briefly in Barcelona, he settled in the north of Spain where he has resided since. He has held different jobs, but at the time of our interview in 2022 he was unemployed. Keyvan indicated a double-conscious connection to both places and described the identity-related effects he experiences when living in Spain and when returning to Iran for visits:
When I’m here, I miss there—and when I’m there, I miss this. I belong to both. I can’t separate myself; I consider myself from here and from there. I’m from Tehran, from the city center, but now I feel deeply connected to the sea, forests, nature—if I move away from this, I feel like I’d die. I’m from both places.Footnote 53
Maryam, Keyvan’s daughter, lived in Tehran where she worked in a Spanish public institution. Expressing the same double-consciousness felt by her father, she also shared in our interview that her Iranian and Spanish identities, as a second-generation Spanish Iranian born in Spain, are in constant symbiosis: “Perhaps when it comes to everyday administrative matters, I feel more accustomed to the European system; in more traditional, cultural, ancestral aspects—such as food and music—I feel closer to Iran.”Footnote 54 She added, “While I am here [in Iran], I feel much more Spanish in many respects, and then, when I am in Spain, I also feel very Iranian in many ways.”Footnote 55
Another second-generation interviewee, Sarina, expressed the aforementioned feelings through the accounts of her life experience around the achievement of balance and stability. Sarina is Nima’s daughter and also lives in Spain, in between Madrid and the north of the peninsula. She was in her thirties at the time of the interview and worked as an influencer. Sarina explains that she was aware of the differences between what she experienced at home as a child and what she encountered at school or in her friends’ homes, such as the linguistic aspects of Persian and Spanish and differences in educational approaches between the cultures. In her words, the key was finding balance: “I learned to manage it so I could adapt.”Footnote 56
Preservation of Triadic Relations
The most well-known Iranian cultural center, the Persepolis Center, opened in Madrid in 2007 and defines itself as a Spanish-Persian intercultural center. According to its director, the center’s objective is didactic, seeking to bring Persian culture closer to the local society, with events organized with this in mind.Footnote 57 As indicated on its website, the center offers Persian language and Iranian musical instrument courses, organizes concerts and trips, sells traditional products, and also serves as a platform for music from Iran.Footnote 58 This cultural approach is a defining feature of the director’s work, just as similar centers in countries with larger Iranian populations tend to be oriented toward the resident Iranian diaspora community rather than members of the host society.Footnote 59
Migration scholars have long posited a triadic connection between the diaspora, the country of origin, and the host country.Footnote 60 Within this triad, intergenerational transmission is highly significant across all migrant groups. In the case of the Iranian community living in Spain, as elsewhere, the connection with Iran and its broader cultural and social sphere is passed down from generation to generation and is primarily nurtured through the family unit. Several interviewees mentioned the celebration of cultural events such as Nowruz and Chaharshanbe Suri as moments of reunion that also strengthened pre-Islamic Persian cultural identity.Footnote 61 In our interview, Haideh recounted that between 1988 and 1993 up to two hundred Iranians would gather in a private venue in Madrid each year to celebrate Nowruz.Footnote 62 Nowruz festivities were initially held on a small scale and in more private settings, but beginning in 2009 they began to take place outdoors, in a rural area on the outskirts of Madrid.Footnote 63 This shift from a private to a public setting was directly related to the coming together of Iranians in Madrid during the Green Movement in Iran. Inspired by the courage of Iranians standing up to the Islamic Republic during that movement, many Iranians in Spain too took courage in distancing (although not abandoning) their fear of the regime.Footnote 64
But, at the same time, these community events contributed to insecurities because of the presence of personnel from the Iranian Embassy in Madrid and the feeling that the “enemy was close,” especially in the context of the assassinations of Iranians in Europe in the 1980s and 1990s.Footnote 65 Halleh Ghorashi’s notion of the “continuous stranger” in the context of the Iranian diaspora in the Netherlands also applies to the Iranian diaspora in Spain.Footnote 66 According to Ghorashi, this fear of the “continuous stranger” within the Iranian community in the Netherlands resulted in “limited interaction” among Iranians and eventually in a lack of cohesion in the Iranian community.Footnote 67 Ghorashi’s take applies to the Iranian case in Spain; a lack of cohesion was particularly felt during those decades and is still present, although with less intensity. When asked about the Nowruz and Chaharshanbe Suri celebrations when interviewed in 2019 in Madrid, Sahba, a second-generation Iranian woman in her late twenties, remembers how she was always insecure at those large public gatherings, and she found it difficult to trust other Iranians. She stated that this fear was transmitted to her by her parents: “There is a tendency among Iranians of isolating themselves from each other.”Footnote 68 As in other countries, the Iranian celebrations mentioned tend to involve the diaspora community and are a way of maintaining and strengthening Iranian identity away from the country of origin, and also include the local community, exposing the host country to Iranian culture, as a contrast to mainstream media depictions.Footnote 69 Sahba pointed to the increasing presence of Spaniards at these festivities over the years. This was something she especially appreciated, as it made her feel more integrated as a second-generation Iranian, although at the same time it did not fully prevent her from feeling the aforementioned lack of trust toward fellow Iranians.Footnote 70
Technological advances in transport and communications also have facilitated greater connection of immigrants to their country of origin.Footnote 71 The fact that air travel to the country of origin is now more accessible than it was several decades ago means that Iranians who are able to return to Iran can do so with greater ease. Excluding those who are exiles, the majority of those interviewed are able to return to Iran and fly there occasionally. As to communications, the emergence of the Internet has transformed how migrants communicate, and Iranians in Spain have certainly benefited from this progress. Sheila recounts the impact this technology has had on her life from the time of her arrival in Madrid in the early 1990s: “When I arrived, there was no Internet at all, it cost 1,000 pesetas to speak on the phone for a minute, so it was letters, then Skype, WhatsApp, Telegram … thanks to technology, we’re much better off now.”Footnote 72 Sheila, who works as a nurse in a health facility, describes that these technological advances have helped her become more connected to her family and friends in Iran and also to the daily news. Technological advances in the field of communication enable all those interviewed to obtain firsthand, real-time information about what is happening in their homeland, helping them feel less distant from it, and to a certain extent functioning as a substitute for travel to the homeland for those unable to go back. According to Haideh, “Our connection is with the land of Iran and with the people there.”Footnote 73 The Internet facilitates her connection to real life and more mundane events in Iran, as seen through the voices of her family and friends and not solely conventional media.
Cultural and Social Connections
Three areas of cultural and social connections are critical to the construction of belonging among Iranians in Spain, yet have, until now, been little explored: hospitality and public social interaction; language and expressive culture; and gastronomy. Although presented as distinct areas, they should be understood as closely intertwined. Here I offer some of the nuances that help explain why the country has become home for Iranians in Spain.
The existence of cultural and social connections between Iran and Spain constituted a key trend in my interviews. These connections are entangled with feelings of belonging and emotions such as nostalgia. For example, for Nima, who arrived in Spain in 1980 at the age of fourteen, Iran has always remained a strong presence in her family environment, although she has spent most of her life in Spain. She described the absence of a cultural clash between Spanish and Iranian cultures as stemming from the fact that both convey a welcoming and, ultimately, warm character.Footnote 74 In her view, a fusion between Iran and Spain would be ideal: “I wish we could merge these two languages, expressions, cultures.”Footnote 75
Similarly, Anoush felt a sense of comfort from his first day in Madrid in the 1980s:
To be honest, I liked it from the very first day I came to Spain. People were very kind, they reminded me of my own people. I didn’t even know the language—just “hello” and not much else—but you’d go have a coffee in a bar, and the person next to you would start talking to you as if you were their neighbor, and there you were, just nodding your head like it was nothing.Footnote 76
These testimonies from Nima and Anoush are representative of the association that hospitality, language and expressive culture, and gastronomy form in the cultural and social connections between Iran and Spain. The following sections show how these elements collaborate in making forced migration and exile less painful for the subjects included in this study.
Hospitality and Public Social Interactions
The role of hospitality and the importance of familial ties is something that several interviewees—both first generation and second generation—highlighted in their narratives. Mirza, an Iranian who arrived at the age of twenty-three in the early 1980s after studying in the United Kingdom, said in his 2022 interview: “People here are very hospitable, very Eastern in that sense, when it comes to family, friendships, respect.”Footnote 77 Mirza’s words resonate with the narratives of Azam, Firoozeh, Shaheen, and Kian in the previous sections, with regard to feeling safe, comfortable, and at ease in Spanish society. Retired at the time of our interview, Mirza had worked for many years in the industrial sector in the north of Spain and was married to a Spanish woman. He recalled how welcomed he felt by his wife’s family and close circle from the very beginning: “People here give special value to relationships; my mother-in-law is like a mother to me, she used to cook for me every day.”Footnote 78
Along these same lines, Keyvan shared that he did not sense any cultural clash between the cultures of his home country and settlement country. This similarity in the culture was present in the understanding of family ties: “No, I didn’t notice a clash. I always say that we are very similar… . The relationships with families, there was more unity, I didn’t notice a cultural clash.”Footnote 79
Several interviewees highlighted the hospitable, warm, and open nature of Spanish society in comparison with other European countries; they only found this in Spain and in Italy.Footnote 80 They also acknowledged that institutional structures in Spain are not as advanced as in other parts of Europe, and therefore there may be more difficulties with labor, education, and social integration.Footnote 81 The open and hospitable social character is curbed by the short history of migration policy in the country, which itself is due to its short democratic history. Since entering the European Union in 1986, Spain has developed a series of minute procedures of regularisation of migrant employees.Footnote 82 This paradoxical situation of a hospitable society but less hospitable integration policies and migration infrastructure has meant, for many Iranians, that although they felt at home in Spain they knew their economic status would be better had they migrated to a northern European country. Their choice to remain regardless of this paradox speaks of the importance my interviewees placed on hospitality, a warm social character, and a feeling of welcome.
Language and Expressive Culture
Understood as a “vehicle for intellectual communication as much as for emotional [communication],” language is central in any migration process. Learning the language of the host state offers the possibility of identifying more with the host society, but struggling with that learning process can bring to the fore sentiments like frustration.Footnote 83 Several of my interviewees expressed difficulties with learning Spanish due to the advanced age at which they arrived in Spain. As in other migration contexts, the more advanced in age Iranian migrants were at the time of migration, the greater the challenges they faced acquiring the local language. As described by Haideh Moghissi, advanced age in Iranian diaspora members is accompanied by sentiments of “isolation and loneliness.”Footnote 84 Morteza, a Baha’i first-generation Iranian interviewed in 2022, recounted that he had to assist his mother, who was already forty-five years old when she arrived in Madrid, with learning Spanish and running various errands. This included translating official documents and handling everyday matters, including shopping.Footnote 85 Similarly, Nima’s parents, Amina and Mehdi, were already in their forties when they arrived in Spain and also had difficulties learning the language. These barriers were especially visible at work.Footnote 86 But although advanced age may present a challenge to language learning, the more relaxed lifestyle and the sense of humor immigrants found in Spain were oft-cited characteristics that made language learning in everyday interactions more feasible.Footnote 87 Indeed, for several interviewees, the social dynamics of both their countries felt remarkably similar, which facilitated interactions and became central to my interviewees’ integration processes. For Keyvan, for instance, the key to learning Spanish lay in integrating with the local population, making local friends, and asking them to correct him: “If I speak incorrectly, tell me.”Footnote 88 While also attending classes to learn Spanish, Keyvan took advantage of his circle of friends to improve his language learning, demonstrating the centrality of social connections in the Spanish context, as also reflected in the words of Azam and Firoozeh.
The connections between Iran and Spain extend beyond social interactions and include cultural forms, such as music. For example, Kian, a first-generation Iranian who worked as a journalist before leaving Iran and now resides in Madrid, told me of the similarities he sees between flamenco singing and Persian singing, as well as in particular features of instrumental music.Footnote 89 Iranian diaspora scholarship is taking an increasing interest in the connection between flamenco music, one of the most famous traditional musical genres in Spain, and traditional Persian music.Footnote 90 These similarities also are the subject of studies in other cultural fields, such as poetry and art.Footnote 91
Gastronomy
Migrant incorporation into a new host society can occur simultaneously with the preservation of transnational ties.Footnote 92 As with most diasporic populations, Iranians’ efforts to preserve customs from their country of origin are reflected in both private and public everyday settings in Spain, ranging from daily cooking of favorite Iranian meals at home to the celebration of public festivals such as Nowruz and Chaharshanbe Suri. As Keyvan recounted, the lack of several typical ingredients in Iranian cuisine compelled him to experiment with local products and adapt traditional recipes.Footnote 93 Having to adapt Iranian dishes to local Spanish produce has not made my interviewees feel less Iranian in Spain, nor has it stopped them from expressing hospitality with food. The second time I interviewed Mehdi, he proudly explained to me how he would make doogh (an Iranian yogurt drink) with Spanish yogurt.Footnote 94 Similarly, during our interview, Haideh showed hospitality with her offering of fresh local fruit, including cucumbers, a key ingredient in Iranian fruit displays, but not considered a fruit in Spain.
However, in contrast to larger nodes of the diaspora like Los Angeles (Tehrangeles) or Toronto (Tehranto), the limited presence of Iranian businesses in mainland Spain, as in other locations with smaller communities of Iranians such as New Zealand, has led to greater integration and adaptation of the Iranian population.Footnote 95 As some interviewees recalled, their mothers played a fundamental role in this gastronomic process of adapting to the host country’s culture. As has been acknowledged, the mother figure can be central in the postmigration processes of Iranians in Spain, as the provider and nurturer of the family.Footnote 96 One strategy some mothers employed was to help the family become accustomed to the local cuisine by introducing typical Spanish regional dishes and flavors each week. I first heard this strategy in my interview with Nasrin, who was living in the United Kingdom, and her octogenarian mother Parvin, in 2022.Footnote 97 Nasrin cherished the memories of her childhood in Spain when her mother would have the family try different cans of prepared local dishes weekly, as a way of experimenting with different tastes and gradually getting accustomed to local foods: “We integrated so much into Spanish life and I am grateful because it has enriched our lives.”Footnote 98
Gastronomy’s role in integration extends beyond food itself to include social interactions and traditions associated with meal time. The sobremesa offers a clear example. Referring to the relaxed time spent together around the table after the meal is finished, the sobremesa is a countrywide habit, especially at festivities and on weekends. It also represents a space where two traits highly characteristic of Spanish culture connect to Iran, the importance given to social ties in the form of family and friends, and to a sense of humor.Footnote 99 Mirza recalled that, when visiting Iran, his Spanish wife and mother-in-law adored the social custom of having long conversations that prolonged the time around the table during meals in Iran. They considered this to be very similar to the sobremesa. Footnote 100 Other interviewees, like Firoozeh and Azam, also mentioned feeling particularly comfortable and at home with the sobremesa.Footnote 101
Conclusions
The aim of this paper has been to analyze narratives of migratory histories of Iranians in Spain with the aim of expanding firsthand data on this particular topic. The article has focused on the social and cultural connections between Iran and Spain that have aided the negotiations of belonging in the country of settlement for the subjects interviewed. Similar to other studies on the Iranian diaspora, this analysis has shown that the central motives for leaving Iran were the desire for more freedom and, more recently, a feeling of hopelessness about life in Iran. The voices presented here have shown that, although at first Spain was often considered a transit country in the migration process, it has become a new home for many first-generation Iranians. This shift from temporary to permanent residence often reflected a recognition of and preference for shared social and cultural norms, even if this choice led to economic challenges they may not have faced in locations without these social and cultural qualities. Like other studies, the research also shows that identity formation for the Iranians interviewed was liminal, with important differences between first and second generations.
These (post)migration narratives of Iranians in Spain highlighted three interconnected spaces that have brought to the fore similarities between Spanish and Iranian culture and society: hospitality and public social interactions; language and expressive culture; and gastronomy. As illustrated in the firsthand experiences gathered here, these themes have been vehicles through which identity and belonging have been negotiated by the subjects included in this study.
Finally, this analysis offers an opportunity to reflect on the impact that arrival in a southern European country has had on a Middle Eastern community whose modern migration has, until now, been far more closely linked to the Anglo-Saxon world. This paper contributes to widening the scope of Iranian diaspora studies to include marginalized and decentralized outlooks on the migration of Iranians.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank the guest editor for her thoughtful feedback on previous versions of this work.
Financial Support
This work was supported by The Basque University System Research Group on Human Security, Local Human Development and International Cooperation (IT1434-22) funded by the Basque Government and the project Crossed gazes between the Iranian and Hispanic worlds. Narratives and representations in contemporaneity (PID2023-1502740A-100) funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities.
Competing interests
The author declares that she has no competing interests.
Sheida Besozzi is adjunct professor at the Department of Applied Economics, Faculty of Labour Relations and Social Work, University of the Basque Country (EHU), Leioa, Spain and researcher at Hegoa, Institute of International Cooperation and Development Studies (EHU), Bilbao, Spain.
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