Hajar Yazdiha
{{Short description|American sociologist}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Hajar Yazdiha
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| birth_date = {{birth year and age|1983}}
| birth_place = Berlin, Germany
| nationality = American
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| alma_mater = {{nowrap|University of Virginia
Brooklyn College
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill}}
| occupation = Sociologist
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| employer = University of Southern California
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| notable_works = The Struggle for the People's King
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| website = {{URL|hajaryazdiha.com}}
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Hajar Yazdiha (born 1983){{cite news |title=Life & Work with Hajar Yazdiha |url=https://voyagela.com/interview/life-work-with-hajar-yazdiha-of-los-angeles/ |access-date=January 15, 2024 |work=VoyageLA |date=October 16, 2023}} is an American sociologist focusing on the politics of inclusion and exclusion with regard to ethno-racial identities.{{cite web |last1=M. |first1=Daryl |title=Interview With an Author: Hajar Yazdiha |url=https://www.lapl.org/collections-resources/blogs/lapl/interview-author-hajar-yazdiha |website=Los Angeles Public Library |access-date=January 15, 2024 |date=October 26, 2023}} She is the author of the 2023 book, The Struggle for the People's King: How Politics Transforms the Memory of the Civil Rights Movement.{{cite news |last1=Demby |first1=Gene |title=Everyone from the Tea Party to immigrants rights groups want a piece of Dr. King |url=https://www.npr.org/2024/01/10/1197954537/everyone-from-the-tea-party-to-immigrants-rights-groups-want-a-piece-of-dr-king |access-date=January 15, 2024 |work=NPR |date=January 10, 2024}}
Early life and education
Yazdiha was born in Berlin to refugees from Iran. She grew up in Northern Virginia. She was inspired by a high school AP English teacher who wrote her a note saying, "You are one of a handful of true academics. Speak up and use your voice."
Yazdiha enrolled in the University of Virginia, graduating with a bachelor's degree in English in 2005.{{cite web |title=Hajar Yazdiha |url=https://cifar.ca/bios/hajar-yazdiha/ |website=CIFAR |access-date=January 15, 2024}} She was particularly interested in the work of Black writers, including W.E.B. du Bois, James Baldwin, and Audre Lorde.
After spending six years in New York City, Yazdiha graduated from Brooklyn College with a master's degree in sociology. She continued to study sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, earning a master's degree in 2013 and a doctorate in 2017.
Career
Yazdiha is assistant professor of sociology at the University of Southern California.{{cite web |title=Hajar Yazdiha |url=https://dornsife.usc.edu/profile/hajar-yazdiha/ |website=USC Dornsife |publisher=University of Southern California |access-date=January 15, 2024}} She is affiliated with the school's Equity Research Institute.{{cite web |title=Dr. Hajar Yazdiha #ERI15Years @eri_usc's Celebration of Community: 15 Years of Solidarity & Service |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZVSe1c6ND8 |website=USC Equity Research Institute (ERI) |via=YouTube |access-date=January 15, 2024 |date=August 14, 2023}}
In May 2023, Yazdiha published her first book,The Struggle for the People's King: How Politics Transforms the Memory of the Civil Rights Movement, which explores how the words of Martin Luther King Jr. have been co-opted and sanitized.{{cite web |title=The Struggle for the People's King: How Politics Transforms the Memory of the Civil Rights Movement |url=https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691246475/the-struggle-for-the-peoples-king |website=Princeton University Press |date=30 May 2023 |access-date=January 15, 2024}}{{cite news |last1=Yazdiha |first1=Hajar |title=Tell the truth about Dr. King |url=https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/01/15/opinion/full-truth-excerpts-struggle-peoples-king/ |access-date=January 15, 2024 |work=The Boston Globe |date=January 15, 2024}} She was first inspired to write the book when reading coverage of the Abigail Fisher case against the University of Texas at Austin, in which she saw the words of King "were being misappropriated to claim affirmative action was anti-white racism."
In addition to her articles in academic journals, Yazdiha has written editorials about King, civil rights, and related subjects for a number of publications, including The Conversation,{{cite news |last1=Yazdiha |first1=Hajar |title=How the distortion of Martin Luther King Jr.'s words enables more, not less, racial division within American society |url=https://theconversation.com/how-the-distortion-of-martin-luther-king-jr-s-words-enables-more-not-less-racial-division-within-american-society-195177 |access-date=January 15, 2024 |work=The Conversation |date=January 12, 2023}} The Hill,{{cite news |last1=Yazdiha |first1=Hajar |title=60 years after the March on Washington, MLK's dream has become a nightmare |url=https://thehill.com/opinion/civil-rights/4169965-sixty-years-after-the-march-on-washington-mlks-dream-has-become-a-nightmare/ |access-date=January 15, 2023 |work=The Hill |date=August 28, 2023}} the Los Angeles Times,{{cite news |last1=Yazdiha |first1=Hajar |title=Opinion: Immigrant communities are indebted to the civil rights movement. But when will they grapple with their own anti-Blackness? |url=https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2023-08-28/march-on-washington-martin-luther-king-racial-progress-black-americans |access-date=January 15, 2024 |work=Los Angeles Times |date=August 28, 2023}} and Time.{{cite magazine |last1=Yazdiha |first1=Hajar |title=The Problem With Comparing Today's Activists to Martin Luther King Jr. |url=https://time.com/6555139/martin-luther-king-double-standards/ |access-date=January 15, 2024 |magazine=Time |date=January 15, 2024}}
Selected publications
- {{cite book |last1=Yazdiha |first1=Hajar |title=The Struggle for the People's King: How Politics Transforms the Memory of the Civil Rights Movement |date=2023 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=9780691246475 }}
- {{cite journal |last1=Yazdiha |first1=Hajar |title=The relational dynamics of racialised policing: community policing for counterterrorism, suspect communities, and Muslim Americans' provisional belonging |journal=Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies |date=2023 |volume=49 |issue=11 |pages=2676–2697 |doi=10.1080/1369183X.2023.2193674 }}
- {{cite journal |last1=Yazdiha |first1=Hajar |title=Racialized Organizations in Racialized Space: How Socio-spatial Divisions Activate Symbolic Boundaries in a Charter School and a Public School |journal=Sociology of Race and Ethnicity |date=2022 |volume=8 |issue=4 |pages=468–482 |doi=10.1177/23326492221114811}}
- {{cite journal |last1=Yazdiha |first1=Hajar |last2=Boen |first2=Courtney |title=It's a stomachache filled with stress": Tracing the Uneven Spillover Effects of Racialized Police Violence Using Twitter Data |journal=Currents: Journal of Diversity Scholarship for Social Change |date=2022 |volume=2 |issue=1 |pages=81–87 |doi=10.3998/ncidcurrents.1780|pmid=35647582 |pmc=9133729 }}
- {{cite journal |last1=Yazdiha |first1=Hajar |title=Toward a Du Boisian Framework of Immigrant Incorporation: Racialized Contexts, Relational Identities, and Muslim American Collective Action |journal=Social Problems |date=2021 |volume=68 |issue=2 |pages=300–320 |doi=10.1093/socpro/spaa058}}
- {{cite journal |last1=Yazdiha |first1=Hajar |title=All the Muslims Fit to Print: Racial Frames as Mechanisms of Muslim Ethnoracial Formation in the New York Times from 1992 to 2010. |journal=Sociology of Race and Ethnicity |date=2020 |volume=6 |issue=4 |pages=501–516 |doi=10.1177/2332649220903747}}
- {{cite journal |last1=Kurzman |first1=Charles |last2=Kamal |first2=Ahsan |last3=Yazdiha |first3=Hajar |title=Ideology and Threat Assessment: Law Enforcement Evaluation of Muslim and Right-Wing Extremism. |journal=Socius |date=2017 |volume=3 |doi=10.1177/2378023117704771|doi-access=free }}
Selected honors and recognition
- 2023 — CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholar{{cite web |title=USC Dornsife News Briefs |url=https://dornsife.usc.edu/news-briefs/faculty-recogntion/2023/05/hajar-yazdiha/ |website=USC Dornsife |publisher=University of Southern California |access-date=January 15, 2024 |date=May 23, 2023}}
- 2022 — Louis Wirth Best Article Award, Section on International Migration, American Sociological Association{{cite web |title=Award-Winning Articles |url=https://academic.oup.com/socpro/pages/awards |website=Social Problems |publisher=Oxford University Press |access-date=January 15, 2024 |quote="Toward a Du Boisian Framework of Immigrant Incorporation: Racialized Contexts, Relational Identities, and Muslim American Collective Action"}}
- 2022 — Ford Foundation postdoctoral fellowship{{cite web |title=Faculty Recognition Archive |url=https://dornsife.usc.edu/news-briefs/archives/ |website=USC Dornsife |publisher=University of Southern California}}
References
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External links
- {{official website|hajaryazdiha.com}}
- {{Instagram|profhajaryazdiha}}
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Category:American sociologists
Category:American women sociologists
Category:American writers of Iranian descent
Category:Brooklyn College alumni
Category:Iranian emigrants to the United States
Category:University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill alumni