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  Date / Time: 11/5/2008 7:22 PM UTC

  Iranian Americans Play Active Role in 2008 Election?
  

  Iranian Americans are well-integrated into their communities and are eager to have their voices heard in the 2008 presidential election, according to several Iranian-American organizations.
  
  “Whether it’s volunteering for a campaign, leading fundraising efforts, organizing voter registration drives or get-out-the-vote efforts, Iranian Americans are in the thick of things in this election like never before,” Patrick Disney, assistant legislative director of the Washington-based National Iranian American Council (NIAC), told America.gov.
  
  
  The Iranian American Political Action Committee (IAPAC) of the Public Affairs Alliance for Iranian Americans (PAAIA) dramatically increased its contributions to local, state and national candidates this election cycle. Morad Ghorban, legislative director of PAAIA, estimates that IAPAC’s contributions and members’ direct contributions to candidates total about $500,000. Iranian-American community organizers are working in both major presidential campaigns.
  
  
  Ghorban credits the boom of activity in part to Iranian Americans feeling more connected to American life. Iranian Americans are a relatively new U.S. minority group — many Iranians emigrated to the United States after the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
  
  
  Initially, “Iranian Americans’ focus was on their families, businesses and assimilation,” Ghorban said. “Once the first generation does that, you see the next generation becoming involved in the civic process and giving back to their country.”
  
  
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Comments

LEAL 11/6/2008 1:29 AM UTC Good article and inspires the Obvious fact that the history of the generations that follow the immigrants in the US demonstrates a "hands off" with religion as it relates to the current capitalistic democracy of the US. The muslim community will have to be dealt with; directed to maintain their freedom of religion if they want it AT HOME OR IN THEIR CHURCH, as has every immigrant before them; the US will not break apart by the Ismalic culture. LEAL

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