ARPA INSTITUTE
18106 Miranda St., Tarzana CA 91356
Phone/Fax (818) 881-0010
Presents: Lecture/Seminar
Subject: "Whitewashed, `Whiteness’ in American History, with a special
focus on Middle-Easterners"
By: John Tehranian
Thursday December 11, 2008 at 7:30 p.m.
Merdinian Auditorium, 13330 Riverside Dr, Sherman Oaks, CA 91423
Directions: On the 101 FY Exit on Woodman, Go North and Turn Right on
Riverside Dr.
Abstract: Throughout American history, racial classifications have
wielded exceptional influence. For example, until 1952, federal law
provided naturalization rights only to individuals who were white or
black, but nothing `in-between.’ During the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries, a wave of new immigration from non-Anglo-Saxon
countries arrived on our shores. As a result, the American legal
system was forced to confront the task of defining what or who
constituted the white race for the purposes of naturalization.
Litigation over the concept of whiteness resulted, yielding
life-altering consequences. While the trials often grew senseless,
with judges delving into the depths of antiquity, reconstructing
history, and spouting rigid ideologies in order to justify their
rulings, the reification of whiteness had a profound impact on shaping
the immigrant experience in the United States.
Armenians played a central role in these cases. And the Armenian
struggle for naturalization rights and `white’ recognition is critical
to understanding the processes at play in the social construction of
race. By drawing upon these cases, Tehranian’s talk assesses the
historical and contemporary relevance of whiteness in American
society, with a particular eye towards the war on terrorism and the
debate over immigration, assimilation, and our national identity,
especially after 9/11. Specifically, he discusses the peculiar
problems of race that continue to plague us and how they affect
Armenian and Middle-Eastern Americans. He also addresses the unusual
Catch-22 facing Middle-Eastern Americans: Although considered white by
law, and therefore ineligible for any policies benefiting minorities,
they have faced rising degrees of discrimination over time’a fact
highlighted by recent targeted immigration policies, racial profiling,
a war on terrorism with a decided racialist bent, and growing rates of
job discrimination and hate crime.
John Tehranian is a Professor of Law and Director of the Entertainment
Law Program at Chapman University School of Law. He has previously
served as Professor of Law at the University of Utah, S.J. Quinney
College of Law, and as Visiting Professor of Law at Loyola Law
School. A graduate of Harvard University and Yale Law School, he is
the author of numerous works on race, civil rights, and constitutional
law. A frequent commentator on legal issues for the broadcast and
print media, Tehranian has appeared on such television programs as
ABC’s Nightline and has been quoted as an expert on legal issues in
such publications as The New York Times, Harper’s Magazine, Financial
Times, Los Angeles Times, Hollywood Reporter and Christian Science
Monitor. He has also served as an expert witness in numerous
intellectual property and civil rights infringement suits and is an
experienced entertainment and intellectual property litigator, having
represented prominent Hollywood, publishing, new media and technology
clients at O’Melveny & Myers LLP and Turner Green Afrasiabi & Arledge
LLP.
Tehranian’s scholarship focuses on the interface between law and
culture, with a particular focus on issues of intellectual property,
entertainment and race. He is the author of the book Whitewashed:
America’s Invisible Middle Eastern Minority (New York University
Press, 2008), an analysis of the social and legal construction of race
and the malleable concept of whiteness through history, and the
forthcoming book Infringement Nation (2010), an examination of
copyright pervasiveness and reform in the digital age.
For information, please call Dr. Hagop Panossian at (818) 881-0010 or
e-mail at [email protected] or [email protected].