This project's central topic is the issue of Arab American discrimination within America, with a particular focus on its prevalence in a post-9/11 society. In alignment with class themes and concepts, this project focuses on a particular racial group, Arab Americans, and how societal racialization and stigmatization has negatively impacted this group through discrimination. I chose this topic as I feel passionately about bringing awareness to the matter as an Arab American myself, along with many relevant items involving psychological research, an academic area I am interested in as an incoming clinical psychology PhD student. The overarching topic is divided into three primary subtopics, being an introduction of the reality of Arab American discrimination, the different ways Arab American discrimination negatively impacts members of the population, and how both Arab Americans and society as a whole can push back against the hostile environment Arab Americans have been finding themselves in for decades. These subtopics are divided into five pages within the exhibit, with the first two pages covering the first subtopic, the third page covering the second sub-topic, and the final two pages covering the last subtopic. I make 3 direct relations to class concepts through each of the three subtopics, all of which can be found later within this overview essay. This topic and much of what can be learned from all of these items are incredibly important to me and my culture, and I hope to spread awareness regarding Arab Americans and their experiences through this work.
For the first of my three central subtopics, I introduce the overarching concept of Arab American discrimination, as it is a reality of the modern Arab American condition that does not receive as much attention as it should, and one that is encouraged by our own government and politics. The first two pages of my exhibit include items that lay a foundation for understanding the issue of Arab American discrimination, and that bring awareness to the various forms it exists through. My first item is an article by Kiara Alfonseca titled 20 years after 9/11, Islamophobia continues to haunt Muslims. She discusses how Arab American discrimination has been a real issue over the last 20 years, bringing up statistics that show a huge increase in hate crimes and Arab insecurity during the time period. Not only that, but she talks about how American politics have only worsened the issue, particularly through the Islamophobic rhetoric spewed by Donald Trump during his election campaign. I chose this article as it not only introduced easily understood figures that painted the picture of the issue's existence, but it also highlighted the part our own government and politics plays in the matter, a key class connection I made between my research and course readings. Next, I include a video of an ABC News reporter interviewing residents of Dearborn, Michigan, one of America's largest Arab communities, about their experiences with discrimination since 9/11. Interviewee sentiments expressed that discrimination through avenues such as hate crimes, employment discrimination, and harassment are common, and that the anti-Muslim rhetoric expressed by Donald Trump has validated racist tendencies in Americans. I included this video as it provided more support for the place our politics have had in encouraging Arab discrimination. I then include a San Diego Tribune article by Doris Bittar and George Majeef Khoury that specifically highlights how Arab Americans are particularly unprotected within our society, along with highlighting how Palestinian Americans have been targeted by a government that doesn't advocate for the rights they deserve. It supports this through bringing up a number of examples, particularly of Palestinian Americans getting shafted through the legal system, and I chose to incorporate this article as it is important to me as a Palestinian American myself, and for how it further addresses our government's place in the issue.
The next page of the exhibit further covers the topic of outlining Arab American discrimination, with a focus on explaining the different ways Arab American discrimination has shown itself within our society. The first source of this page, an excerpt from the Journal of American Ethnic History, Louise Cainkar specifically outlines many of the ways Arab American discrimination takes form, such as through government policies, media representation, mainstream cultural representations, employment discrimination, public perceptions and attitudes, discriminatory behaviors, and social/political exclusion. She explores these issues as vessels through which the social distance has grown between Arabs and other American populations over the last few decades. I chose this source as it provided an abundance of nuanced explanation regarding many of the numerous ways Arab American discrimination takes form, many of which being relatable to me and what I have witnessed in my own life. Following this, I discuss an article within the American Studies Journal written by Ghada Quaisi Audi that further highlights the ways discrimination takes form against Arab Americans. The author specifically focuses on the domains of racial discrimination, hate crimes, employment discrimination, and civil rights issues such as racial profiling. With a number of illustrating examples under the context of a reactionary American society following 9/11, I chose this source as it excellently explores many of the difficulties one encounters as an Arab in current day America. Lastly, I chose to incorporate a tweet I myself scrolled across a couple of weeks ago. The post quote-tweets a video glorifying early 2000s high school in America with a screenshot saying that being an Arab American student during this time period was filled with a discriminatory atmosphere commonly accepted by both teachers and students. The tweet went viral on Twitter, and I incorporated because it represents how even in the current day, countless people from all over relate to having understood this occurring in post 9/11 America, and the natural, genuine nature of this evidence through Twitter helps supplement the peer-reviewed journal articles I incorporated prior.
For this subtopic, one class concept that informed and related to it was the idea of a societal atmosphere artificially fueling a discriminatory status for a minority through avenues of power, such as science, government, or politics. This was a common theme found in several class materials, initially introduced in readings from How Race is Real (Mukhopadhyay et al., 2007), and From Savage to Negro (Baker, 1998), where it was described how racially motivated scholars and scientists cultivated divisions between "races" through proposed scientific discovery that wouldn't be refuted, even though it was not founded upon by credible science. This allowed those in power with discriminatory ideologies to find a reason to put down non-majority races, a sentiment that was echoed by people within the society who were then validated for their racist views. This closely mirrors what several of these items have discussed regarding how Arab American discrimination has worsened due to the modern political landscape within America, where those with power and influence, such as Donald Trump, encourage anti-Arab government policies and spread propaganda regarding Arabs that validate racist ideologies of civilians.
The third page of my exhibit focuses on the second of my three central subtopics, being the different ways Arab American discrimination has directly impacted members of this population. Through three different items, I focus on impacts through the domains of mental health, abuse, and employment limitations. The first item is a research study, The Association of Perceived Abuse and Discrimination After September 11, 2001, With Psychological Distress, Level of Happiness, and Health Status Among Arab Americans, that utilizes a face-to-face survey sampling Arab Americans regarding their experiences with discrimination and mental health measures. The results concluded that experiences with discrimination following 9/11 have had an impact on mental health through reports of increased psychological distress and reduced levels of happiness, and I included this item as it provides clear empirical evidence for how discrimination has had a negative impact in this area. The next item I include focuses on how Arab Americans are subjected to abuse and harassment far too often: a Chicago news story covering how a Palestinian American teenager was brutally beaten by local police officers using excessive force. The local Arab community responded with both a lawsuit and a sentiment of outcry regarding this specific instance and local law enforcement tendencies of harassment and profiling against Arabs, and this instance serves to be just one example of the countless similar occurrences of such violence against Arab Americans. Lastly, I include a research paper, It's All in the Name: Employment Discrimination Against Arab Americans, that attempts to investigate if the well-documented reality of Arab American discrimination in a post 9/11 American has had an impact in employment discrimination. They conduct a study where they send out equally qualified resumes to over 250 job applications with both white and Arab names attached, in order to see if there is any difference in application success with only this variable varying. They find that the white-named applications are twice as successful as the Arab-named applications, leading them to conclude that discriminatory hiring practices are incredibly real within our nation against Arabs, and providing empirical support for yet another detrimental impact of Arab discrimination within America.
In regard to the direct impact a discriminatory culture can have on a minority group, one major class parallel I made is between the aforementioned impacts on Arab Americans, and what we learned about Asian American discrimination in Anti-Asian Racism and COVID-19 (Ho, 2020). In this article, several impacts of discrimination and harassment are mentioned. One example is the murder of Vincent Chen, a racially motivated assault that came to mind after reading the story of how an Arab American teen was excessively beaten by police officers. Another is the discussed racially fueled yellow peril sentiments that fueled an anti-Asian societal landscape, which resembles how Islamophobia was utilized for political gain at the expense of Arab Americans. One last parallel to be found here is how both Arab and Asian American discrimination rose following a major event perceived to be relevant to that ethnic group at large, being the 9/11 attacks and the COVID-19 pandemic, respectively. Both the article and several of my items discuss how countless Arabs and Asians can personally say they fear for themselves or have experienced harassment due to the rampant discrimination present in the country against their minority groups, and both minority groups must be met with positive outreach in order to improve these circumstances.
The final two pages of my exhibit tackle how both Arab Americans and our society as a whole have and can respond towards Arab American discrimination, with the fourth page specifically highlighting the ways Arab populations practice resilience against discrimination, and the fifth page focusing on what we as a society have done and can do to advocate for Arab Americans. I first include a video published by NowThis News that spreads awareness regarding Arab American heritage month, something that has only been nationally recognized since 2017. Many speakers within the interview advocate for the importance of Americans better understanding the incredibly sizable Arab population within America. The video sheds light on so many facets of Arab American culture within just a few minutes, describing the different food and items Arabs have passed on into American culture, well known Arab American celebrities, the religious diversity present in Arab American communities, and ignorance regarding this population must be extinguished in order to do away with Arab discrimination. I included this source not only for how successfully it spreads awareness about commonly held misconceptions regarding Arab Americans, but for how it advocates for the rights of this population through the voices of Arab Americans themself, particularly through the avenue of combating ignorance. The second item I included is the research article, Arab American Adolescents’ Responses to Perceived Discrimination: A Phenomenological Study, that investigates how Arab American Muslim teenagers respond against discrimination, utilizing data from 10 teenagers who have reported ethnic discrimination against them. The researchers concluded that they found 3 positive ways and 3 negative ways in which these Arab American teens responded to discrimination, which both sheds light on what might potentially be more useful to implement when coping against discrimination and what might be less useful. I included this source as it sheds light on very specific mechanisms of resilience that Arab Americans practice against discrimination, and for how it spreads awareness on how to recognize beneficial and harmful coping strategies for mental health professionals, teachers, parents, and anyone else who might read the findings. For my next item, I incorporate a photo of an Arab American protest in the Chicago area, capturing one example of Arab American community members coming together to advocate for the recognition they deserve. This specific protest is outside of a Trump hotel pushing against Trump's discriminatory propaganda against Muslims, and is paired with an article advocating for Middle Easterners to have a more applicable census option than "White". I included this photo for its visual representation of Arab American resilience through the coming together of Arabs to protest for their rights within this country, a powerful and commonplace occurrence for this marginalized group.
The final page of the exhibit continues to focus on how to respond towards the issue of Arab American discrimination, with these items focusing on how our American society can better support Arab Americans through fostering a culture where members of this population are better understood and respected. The first item is a United States Department of Justice notice that describes how their Civil Rights Division has pushed back against the acknowledged issue of Arab American discrimination since 9/11. This includes hundreds of conducted investigations regarding Arab hate crimes, discrimination in housing, education, employment, public accommodation and religious land use, along with extensive Arab American outreach programs that have been implemented. Even if the effectiveness of these federal interventions can potentially be argued, the language used and information provided on this page are beneficial in establishing an American culture that disowns Arab American discrimination, and I included it for how its content represents this concept. The next item I include is a research paper titled, School-Based Considerations for Supporting Arab American Youths’ Mental Health, which advocates for the importance of recognizing Arab Americans and their needs. After establishing that mental health is a major issue for Arab American youth, due in no small part to discrimination, the paper extensively provides fully fleshed out recommendations regarding how mental health and school-based professionals can better support this population navigate culturally unique difficulties. They advocate for the importance of cultural sensitivity and competence, and go on to say that curriculum-based widespread Middle Eastern education would go a long way in tearing down the current school climate where cultural ignorance leads to children harassing other children. I included this research paper for its extensive information pertaining to Arab Americans as a population, as well as how to better support younger generations of this population. Any reader who has any influence or interaction with American youth such as school employees, parents, or mental health professionals can learn a great deal from the information provided in this paper. For the final item of this section, I included a school district webpage providing notice of how schools within that district will celebrate Arab American heritage month in April. Federal Ways Public Schools in Washington bring attention to the prominence of Arab Americans within their community and the country at large, go on to introduce plans to hold several activities recognizing Arab Americans for students of all ages to take part in, including showcasing Arab American literature and art, activities writing out the Arabic alphabet, and displaying quotes celebrating Arab culture. The webpage states that these activities are taking place district wide across elementary, middle, and high schools, reaching youth audiences of all ages. I included this item as it represents a real-life example of how we as a society can better support Arab Americans through educating and involving the youth, and it serves to be something every school district can learn and implement from.
One last class concept that has helped inform my understanding of these last few items is the concept of how different minority groups advocate for themselves and practice resilience against marginalization and discrimination, as well as how we individually and as a society can support minority groups in such hostile climates. While relevant ideas to this concept were constant in our materials, one that specifically came to mind was what I learned about Native American communities in Native American DNA (Tallbear, 2013), and the All My Relations podcast episode (Wilbur et al., 2019). Engaging with these materials showed me how Native American communities combat the abuse of their genetic rights together, such as through the Indigenous People's Council on Biocolonialism, the International Indigenous Forum on Biocolonialism, and many other examples. These empowerment groups are a way in which Native people practice resilience against abuse, just as Arabs do the same through their own empowerment groups and other aforementioned means. Additionally, when understanding how anyone can help support Arab Americans, I related what I was learning to the "how to be an anti-racist ally" section from Anti-Asian Racism and COVID-19 (Ho, 2020). This section at the end of the article discusses how being an ally involves educating oneself about the culture at hand and its history with racism in America, correct people on their ignorance and call out insensitive comments, and learning how to act against racism, all concepts that align with and can be applied to what I learned about supporting Arab Americans from the final couple items.
The process of forming the template for my topic, researching these topics, and writing about them in a way I find personally interesting was something I found to be incredibly engaging and particularly important for an academic project. As an Arab American myself with countless family members both born here and back in Palestine, I found almost every article, video, picture, research paper, and item I came across to be personally relatable to some extent. I learned academically that while there is some exceedingly interesting research out there regarding my own culture and place within America, there is a consistent theme within the literature that there is a gap in knowledge regarding Arab Americans in comparison to other minority groups, and that there is room for so much more work to be done. As someone preparing to start a clinical psychology PhD in the Fall, this project has provided me with some personal inspiration on where I could potentially take my own research over the next few years. Personally, this work instilled in me an even greater pride in my own heritage, and it taught me even more about the specific hardships my community has faced that I wasn't aware of before. We covered a great deal in class regarding the implications of a discriminatory society on a variety of minority groups, and this served to be an incredibly fulfilling learning experience about a similar circumstance affecting Arab Americans.
Credits
Eric Ajluni