Iranian American identity was under scrutiny long before the U.S. struck Iran

Code Switch

NPR

Society & Culture

4.6 • 14.5K Ratings

🗓️ 23 June 2025

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We're throwing back to a conversation we had in 2020 with Jason Rezaian, Iranian American journalist who had been previously jailed in Iran. Back in January of 2020, the first Trump administration carried out a military operation killing Qassem Soleimani, an Iranian military commander. Now, the second Trump administration is striking Iranian nuclear sites. While lots has changed since 2020, much of our conversation with Jason is still eerily relevant.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	The best kind of celebrity interview is one where you find out that the person who made a thing you love also thinks in a way that you love.
0:10.2	Nothing is more foreign than when Ariel says in The Little Mermaid, I want to be where the people are.
0:16.1	I don't want to be where the people are. I just don't.
0:20.0	I'm Rachel Martin.
0:23.5	Listen to the Wildcard podcast, only from NPR.
0:26.0	What's good?
0:29.2	You are listening to Code Switch, the show about race and identity from NPR.
0:30.5	I'm Gene Demby.
0:34.7	So I'm sure y'all feel this, but it feels like keeping up with the news these days.
0:37.0	It's like drinking from a water plug.
0:38.3	That's what we call a fire hydrant in Philadelphia. Like it's relentless. It's overpowering. It could knock you over.
0:44.5	And I could list some examples right here, but by the time you all hear this, those examples would
0:48.1	probably be dated anyway because, you know, the hydrant. But over the weekend before I'm sitting
0:52.7	down to record this, something happened that felt like it turned the hydrant into a geyser.
0:57.7	The United States launched a military strike on Iran.
1:01.8	According to President Trump, it targeted three nuclear sites.
1:05.3	It was a move that the president had been teasing for some time,
1:07.4	yet it still left a lot of people in shock.
1:12.2	What happens next is anybody's guess.
1:15.5	But if history repeats itself, as it tends to, one of the things we can predict is that
1:21.3	Iranian identity is going to be caricatured by a lot of people, you know, depicted as
1:26.5	something that is flat and
	...

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