White Without the Privilege 

As an Arab-American junior in high school, I will have to answer the very first question on my next standard test incorrectly. Or at least it feels that way. Arab-Americans have been left with no category in the race section of government-issued assessments. In recent years, the “White” category has been revised to “White–including those of Middle Eastern origin.” While it’s an improvement, it just isn’t enough. 

The Census’ Stance and Why it Doesn’t Matter

The Census claims to ask about race to adhere to the needs of all racial groups. They say it’s to “monitor compliance with anti-discrimination laws, regulations, and policies.” If this is true, I’d also like the Census to explain the treatment of MENA-Americans in contrast with the rest of the allegedly “White” population. It isn’t them that experience any of the microaggressions associated with being Middle Eastern in the U.S. Not to mention the more prominent forms of racism that are present in the MENA-American experience– from the many hate crimes to the racial profiling and targetting of Arabs at TSA in the name of “national security.” These are real and widespread issues specific to MENA-Americans.

I know I’m not the only Arab girl that has sat in class, spaced out, looking at the posters on the wall, and taking in the smell of books only to snap back to a room full of eyes staring at me.  Not because I’ve been asked a question, not because I’ve got anything on my face, but because the topic of 9/11 was just brought up.  In 2013, the window walls of my father’s barbershop were shattered in the northside of Chicago. He’d opened the shop for about a year before the crime took place so he was fairly new. Nothing was stolen, and there was no ulterior motive for breaking into it. After all, there isn’t much to take from a barbershop. A motive seems hard to pinpoint until you find out that the corner store in that same plaza, owned by another Arab man, had also been broken into and vandalized. Again, nothing was stolen; no ulterior motive was uncovered. The surrounding shops, which were all Polish-owned, were left untouched. The case was later brought to court and tried as a hate crime. There was no media coverage for either of the incidents, but sometimes I wonder if there might’ve been had it been the Polish-owned shops that were destroyed instead. 

Naturalization and the Outdated Categorization of Race

Now, if so many Arabs don’t identify with being White, why are they legally considered to be in the first place? On March 26th, 1790, U.S. Congress passed the Naturalization Act, which held that any free, White adult who has lived in the U.S. for at least 2 years was eligible for citizenship.  During this time, immigrants had to appear in court and prove their “whiteness” to become naturalized.

So for years, Middle Easterners and North Africans, along with people all over the world, would fight in court to be considered “White” because it was the only ticket toward citizenship without racist and restrictive immigration policies. Upon the number of Arab aliens immigrating to the U.S, Arab-Americans were eventually legally classified as “White” in 1944. This holding included people of North African and Southwest Asian descent.

To think that the politics and reasoning of race, of all topics in the 17, 18, and early 19th centuries, would apply to society in the United States now, is ridiculous. So much so, that after understanding why MENA-Americans were in this position, I wondered how this classification hadn’t been challenged. That is until I found out that it has been– multiple times.

Race vs. Ethnicity

In 2018, the Obama administration finally considered adding a MENA category to the Census and standardized tests but ultimately declined it, arguing that Middle Eastern/North African was seen as an ethnicity, not a race. Ethnicity is defined as a way to categorize people according to cultural identity. To many, it makes sense that “Arab” would be considered an ethnicity, but not enough people question what a broad term it is compared with other “ethnicities” like German or Spanish. 

The Merriam-Webster dictionary definition of the word ‘race’ is as follows: “a category of humankind that shares certain distinctive physical traits.” Race is usually associated with biology. It is linked with physical characteristics like hair texture, and skin color.  In the mind of society, however, if I were to stand an Arab person with brown skin, thick dark brows, and a long nose next to a blonde headed, European person, with pale skin and blue eyes, I would have a hard time finding said physical similarities with the white person. Granted, not everyone from one race looks exactly the same, as genes can vary pretty widely, but next to most people of European ancestry,  society just does not see me as a White girl, and would not treat an Arab man the same as they would any other “White” man. So legally, why would we all fall under the same race? Simply, we shouldn’t.