Expanding Whiteness at the Arab’s Expense
While filling out the census, bubbling in categories before your SAT, or partaking in any other form that complies demographic data, you’re presented with a list of racial identities to choose from: White, Black or African American, American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander. Seems simple enough, until you start to wonder where people from Arabian descent fit in.
In this article, I used the term Arab, as it’s simple and anyone from the 22 nations in the Arab League can back up their qualifications to belong to the demographic. But anything along the lines of Arabian, Middle Eastern, SWANA (South West Asian/ North African), Levitant, Semitic, or something similar would be adequate.
The Middle East covers an immense amount of area, from northern Africa to the Arabian Peninsula, lines parts of the Mediterranean, and encompasses much of Western Asian. Though it seems easy to just pick African or Asian depending on the continent your ancestry from, doing so negates the similar experiences Arabs can connect with due to their cultural proximity, not their geographic one. To put it simply, someone from Egypt and someone from Jordan live on completely separate continents, but they share a language and similarity in values that are significantly more linked than those with people from their respective continents.
The Arab-American Institute estimates that the United States is home to roughly 3.7 million Arabs. This civil rights organization takes it upon themselves because the lack of census data makes it difficult to compile concrete evidence of certain people’s racial identities.
Beyond the fact that the vast majority of Arab Americans by no means live a white experience, adding us to the white majority gives people the impression we live as the same as the monolith, when that can’t be further from the truth. Even if you are a white Arab, there are stigmas, cultural differences, and religious differences that create a striking contrast between the lives of those with European descent and those with Arabian descent.
At its core, this issue is about expanding whiteness at the expense of Arab Americans. Granted, in 1915, this legal whiteness was a benefit. George Dow, a Syrian immigrant, wanted to be legally considered white so that he could become a naturalized citizen of the states. Dow vs. The United States went up to the Court of Appeals and Dow won, making way for Arabs to become American citizens.
Though we once benefitted from this categorization, now it’s difficult to gather data on our pan-ethnic communities.
Another factor in why people of Arabic descent want their own box to fill on the census is because race is truly subjective. My fair skin and small nose leaves people feeling deceived upon uncovering my ethnic identity because I don’t fit what they expect an Arab woman to look like.
Currently, the United States has five minority majority states, meaning that there are more people of color than white people in those states. Though Arabs come in every color, from white or racially ambiguous Arabs who benefit from white privilege to brown Afro-Arabs, the same can be said for the Hispanic, Asian, Indigenous, Black, and really any other community.
From a sociological standpoint, race is about how one is perceived by others, but the census doesn’t have a section where people can type up their features and let the government know how racially ambiguous they are. Other pan-ethnic communities are able to know what health risks their communities are more at-risk of, if their demographic is more conservative or liberal, and have caucuses that represent their group’s interests in the government! Without basic census recognition, Arabs will never be able to access this data or learn more about their diaspora living in the states.
Cover Photo by AFP. Edited by Madison Case.