2015 Reports

Check ‘White’…Right?: Race Identification for Middle Eastern Americans

Brewington, Jordan Berkeley; Smith, Raymond Arthur

Middle Eastern Americans, vastly diverse in ethnicity, are grappling with self-identification and racialization as they assimilate into the American racial climate. All groups within MENA continue to struggle against anti-Middle Eastern discrimination following 9/11, yet while certain individuals struggle with integration based on darker skin tones, others struggle with being identified as ‘white’ on the U.S. Census. Push back from the categorization of “whiteness” has surfaced in recent years, both for personal identity reasons as well as access to minority funding groups.