Inside the Iranian capital of the U.S

Daily Mail​

30-06-2025

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They fled from the oppression of a cruel regime in their homeland in search of the American Dream. In the decades since the 1970s, Iranian immigrants have settled in Los Angeles for a fresh life, creating the largest diaspora of their countrymen in the world. Today, the city's community is known as 'Tehrangeles,' a vibrant neighborhood named after Iran 's ancient capital, which endured heavy bombardment during the recent conflict with Israel.
Just days into a fragile ceasefire between the two Middle Eastern countries, local residents urged President Donald Trump to launch further air strikes on Iran to 'take out' the country's hardline leaders - or end up with an apocalyptic disaster 'worse than Hiroshima.' On June 21, Trump ordered airstrikes that destroyed the country's underground nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan using B-2 stealth planes with 30,000lb bunker-buster bombs and Tomahawk missiles. Now the Angeleno-based expats, desperate for regime change, hope that Trump will finish what he started - and obliterate the despotic leaders controlling Iran.
Though they are 7,500 miles away, many locals remain wary of speaking out, fearful of reprisals from Iran's murderous mullahs. Some were reluctant to give their full names or be photographed. Mohammed Ghafari (pictured), a father of three grown children and owner of Shater Abbass Bakery & Market, left Iran in 1974 for Canada, where he lived for 28 years and met his wife before moving to the US in 2001. He talks proudly of becoming a grandfather a month ago, counting his blessings for the new start he had in Los Angeles: 'I'm doing so good. I am successful in America.'
But Ghafari has deep concerns for Iranians who were less fortunate, noting: 'They have no car fuel and probably no money. How could they get out? They have no alternative. I am so sorry for them.' With internet and phone communications to Iran severed, the 77-year-old has not heard from his three brothers and two sisters in Tehran since the recent deadly conflict flared. He blamed 'fanatics' for decades of turmoil in his birthplace, saying that Iran having nuclear weapons was 'not compatible with peace in the region.' 'We shouldn't destroy any country. We should love everybody.'
Ghafari is an advocate for regime change and said that the country's 86-year-old Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 'should be removed.' He believes that Trump's destruction of the nuclear enrichment sites was justified and called for more action because Iranians were unable to overthrow leaders on their own for fear of imprisonment and torture. However, if the President's decisions were based on US interests, such as access to oil, rebuilding contracts and weapons sales, then that was a different matter altogether. Iran and Israel, Ghafari predicted, 'can't afford more' conflict.
King Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, once a key ally of the United Kingdom and the US, was forced to flee Iran in 1979 when religious extremists, led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, orchestrated the Islamic Revolution and took over. The Shah's departure marked the end of more than 2,500 years of continuous Persian monarchy. Khomeini went on to become Iran's first Supreme Leader under a theocratic regime until his death in 1989. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei succeeded him and has held the position ever since. Today, more than a third of the estimated 400,000 Iranian-born immigrants in the US live in Los Angeles.
The neighborhood of Tehrangeles, also known as 'Little Tehran' or 'Persian Square,' near the University of California, Los Angeles campus, is a bustling mix of Persian restaurants, cafes, and grocery, rug and book shops. Alex Macam, a 19-year-old restaurant worker born in Iran, moved to the US with his parents in 2019 to escape a crumbling economy and is now seeking asylum. 'We had no other option,' Macam said. 'No country needs a nuclear bomb. The goal should be peace and harmony.' He has stayed in touch with friends back in Iran and said social media had enabled younger generations to see 'how the regime works.' He added that younger Iranians didn't get along with radicalism. 'There's a sense that we can get what we want.
'We are not tolerating any more these ridiculous laws because we didn't choose them, you know?' But as the Iranian economy has worsened, Macam said many 'regret' not leaving when they had the chance. 'The economy has gone down so much they can't buy a ticket,' he said. At Pink Orchid Bakery and Cafe on Westwood Boulevard, known for its Persian cakes and pastries, student Salar Montaseri, 17, from St Louis, was visiting his cousin, Parsa, 16. He said that those who supported the Iranian regime were often indoctrinated by family members embedded within the system, motivated by wanting to 'grow their wealth.' Montaseri, born in the US, said it was up to the Iranian people living there to determine the future of their homeland. 'Eighty percent of the country has been oppressed for nearly 50 years,' he said. 'People's daily lives have been impacted so much. They don't like it. They want change.'
Rather than the nuclear facilities being destroyed, he believes a peace process would have been preferable. 'But you can't trust a regime that's had a history of terrorism, wants to destroy another country, and has caused so much conflict,' Montaseri added. Simone Gueramr, 81, praised Trump's actions and blamed 'all those fascist mullahs' regime for making Iran hell when it used to be heaven.' She said she came to the US from Iran after the revolution. Iran, Gueramr said, used to be 'the Switzerland of the Middle East. It was very civilized,' she told the Daily Mail. 'The Shah put the country before himself. Israel was a good friend of Iran when Shah was there.' Gueramr stressed that the war-hungry regime and Iranian people are not the same. 'The regime wants to destroy Israel because it is afraid. The people, though, are friends of Israel.'
The leaders sought to possess nuclear weapons for security 'so the rest of the world will not touch them.' She wants the Ayatollah to 'pack his bag and go. This isn't just me - this is what all decent Iranians want. 'Forty-seven years of suffering under the fascist dictators is enough.' Trump, she asserted, was 'right to step in. We know the mullahs would use the bomb against the world. It would be something worse than Hiroshima. 'God bless America and God bless Israel for trying to stop them.' Kam Dadeh (pictured), 66, told the Daily Mail that he hoped to see 'an end to the regime that's been brutalizing the people of Iran.'
New leaders, he said, would 'cooperate with everybody.' The violent nature of the current leadership, which simply killed opponents, had made change impossible. 'The people of Iran are scared right now because every time they go out, they just massacre them,' he said. The married father-of-two moved to California in 1976 when he was aged 17 and studied civil engineering at the University of Southern California. 'We would love our people to be free,' he said. 'Why should women have to be beaten up because they're walking around showing their hair? What is it?'
A manager at Shaherzad restaurant, also on Westwood Boulevard, where elderly men and women talk in Farsi over cups of traditional Persian tea, said he moved to LA five years ago. The 30-year-old, who gave his name as Al Ja, said that 90 percent of Iranians were in favor of regime change but cautioned that the removal of hardline mullahs could lead to a power vacuum and factional fighting. 'The best way to help Iran,' he told the Daily Mail, 'would be for other countries, led by America, to help create a healthy, stable economy.' He also called for some sanctions to be lifted to ease the burden on ordinary Iranians who just wanted to go about their day-to-day lives. 'Peace should be possible one day,' Al Ja said.