DOCUMENT, the second major photographic look at the lives of Iranian-Americans in Los Angeles, is currently on view at UCLA's Fowler Museum.

Brothers Reza and Sina Foroughi: Photo: Parisa TaghizadehThe project is in many ways a follow-up to the work of Ron Kelley in his 1993 book Irangeles (which concentrated primarily on the first wave of Iranians entering the US following the 1979 revolution). But DOCUMENT self-consciously sets itself apart from Irangeles not only by focusing on the next generation but also by having Iranians document Iranians: Amy Malek, a UCLA doctoral candidate in Anthropology, conceived the project and collaborated with four Iranian-born photographers to create the exhibit.

As an artistic endeavor DOCUMENT achieves impressive and occasionally breathtaking results. Each of the photographers has a strong, distinctive style (ranging from Parisa Taghizadeh's dispassionate theatricality to Farhad Parsa's calculated naturalism), and each manages to make his/her own voice heard in choice of subject, staging, and framing. A few of the photos are total knockouts: Ramin Talaie's striking portrait of Reza Aslan, perfectly coiffed, sporting aviator shades and reclining ever-so-casually on a staircase, subversively echoes glamour shots of Hollywood icons and speaks volumes about the ever-dissolving line between academic and celebrity; Taghizadeh's photograph of Marjan Mobasser, the only Iranian-American woman on the LAPD, nearly bursts off the wall with the uncomfortable tension that emanates from its clench-fisted subject; Arash Saedinia captures to astounding effect the 21st-century combination of innocence and weariness in the gaze of a very young Neda Rouhani.

Filmmaker Justin Mashouf: born to an Iranian father and American mother, b-boy, and practicing Muslim, married to an Iranian American. (Photo Ramin Talaie)But, strong as they are, the photographs are not allowed to fully breathe and form their own open-ended conversation with the viewer. The persistent use of text cards throughout the show, while presumably expanding the anthropological dimension of the project, severely reigns in the subject-object relationship and serves as a strong statement on (if not a rejection of) the storytelling ability of photographs alone.

The text cards offer, on one level, a fragmentary narrative about the experience of immigration and acculturation, partly from the mouths of those represented. On another level, they labor to stress the skills and accomplishments of the subjects: ... "has numerous film, TV shows, Tours and comedy specials to his credit"... "opened her first business at age 24"..."served as directing fellow at the Juilliard School" ... "received his first Grammy nomination in 2008"... "has multiple graduate degrees and frequent TV appearances"... and so on. Taken together, they tend to read like a collective resume; which begs the question, exactly what position is being applied for? The answer seems to be, that of AMERICAN. But is this the official goal of the Iranian-American community—to assimilate itself into non-existence? Are we really shooting for, as Porchista Khakpour wrote in a recent LATimes essay, "being able to say there is no us"? Indeed, DOCUMENT appears to speak more about the anxieties of properly assimilating than the pitfalls and contradictions of living as a cultural hyphenate; it often feels like a checklist of various ways of being/becoming a "good American" rather than an unflinching document of an in-between generation.

In its introductory wall-text the show is careful to remind us that it aims not to be "a comprehensive or objective portrait of a community." Still, despite a few standouts, DOCUMENT feels inordinately homogenous in its choice of subjects. A striking majority of the 50-odd people photographed are described as academics, entrepreneurs, professionals, or in the arts—sometimes a combination thereof. This of course is a reflection of the curator/photographers' own socioeconomic status and self-image; but as such the show certainly falls short of representing anything close to a cross-section of its target demographic. Are there really no young Iranian-Americans driving taxis, waiting tables, working in factories, bagging groceries, or tending DMV counters? Or is their existence something to be swept under the rug (or at best not spotlighted)?

In selecting and insistently validating its subjects vis-à-vis certain specific standards, DOCUMENT reveals inadvertently the values of a small segment of the Iranian community of Los Angeles and embodies the way those values are projected onto the larger whole. This process—of a small minority (usually those with access to media and funds) defining the values and public face of the greater majority—has long been problematized in the academic discourse on self-representation. DOCUMENT tries to have its cake and eat it too: it briefly nods at the problem ("Who is allowed to represent and speak for a community?" asks the wall-text) and then proceeds to add its own bulk to it.

Despite its flaws, however—or perhaps even because of them—DOCUMENT is a must-see not only for fans of great photography but also for anyone interested in the zeitgeist of Iranian-American culture. It is on view until August 22nd, 2010.

Kouross Esmaeli is an independent journalist and filmmaker living in New York City; Omid Arabian is Film Editor for the Levantine Review.