Counting the Community: the fight for MENA recognition — Daily Bruin PRIME Magazine Summer 2024 Issue

Before you is a government form – it could be the census, an employment form or a financial aid request. You’ve prepared all your documents and information, diligently filling out questions with information you know is absolutely correct. 

That is, until you reach the question: “What is your race?”

None of the options accurately fit your identity. There is no box you can check.

This is the experience of many Middle Eastern and North African people in the United States. And this is more than a momentary frustration – it impacts the MENA community’s access to government resources and limits how their identity is represented. As legislative changes to address this disparity begin to take shape, MENA students across UCLA’s campus have found ways to build and support their community – pushing for acceptance and celebrating their diversity along the way. 

The U.S. Census Bureau considers someone who is “white” as a person of European, Middle Eastern or North African descent. This categorization also bundles white and MENA-identifying people together in a plethora of other surveys. For example, higher education organizations and application processes such as the Common App, UC application, FAFSA and College Board use this categorization to collect demographic data about applicants. Additionally, efforts to address racial equity via state and federal resource distribution and taxation are also affected by this categorization. 

For many in the MENA community, being provided their own separate racial category may better capture the racial complexity of the region, as many MENA individuals do not fit into the white racial category. Many North African and Middle Eastern people do not receive the privileges associated with having distinctly white features, with many having names and wearing religious dress differentiating them from white Americans. Furthermore, according to a 2022 study published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, both white participants and MENA-identifying participants did not categorize characteristics related to the MENA region as being white.

Soffee Khalilieh, a rising third-year global studies student, said these differences make the single racial category problematic.  

“Especially my Muslim brothers and sisters that show their culture more outwardly than I do …   being discriminated for how they appear visually, and then having to check ‘white’ as if they get to have that privilege and that treatment is just so unfair,” she said. 

John Antowan, a 2024 human biology and society graduate, said this impacts more than just external perception. On forms such as college applications, only being able to identify as white can feel like an incomplete representation of one’s cultural identity. 

Antowan grew up in El Paso, Texas. With very few MENA-identifying people in his community, most of his peers perceived him as white. His connection to his Iraqi and Syrian background was mainly confined to his home life. At UCLA, Antowan joined the Middle Eastern Student Association, where he learned to balance understanding his privilege as a white-passing person with his desire to self-identify as Middle Eastern. 

“I would kind of playfully say that I’m white and they (MESA members) would be like, ‘No, you’re Middle Eastern, you have very Middle Eastern features,’” Antowan said. “I grew up my whole life thinking that those features were just generally white and so … I kind of never really doubted it.” 

A MENA category on surveys opens the door for a variety of opportunities. Sara Faraj, a rising fourth-year cognitive science student, said having this category would be important because race is so central to the history of the U.S.

“The US as a system, cares so much about race – more than a lot of other countries all around the world – and I think that’s in part due to our very racialized history,” Faraj said. “As a result of that, we can’t really neglect people’s race, because it does pervade so many aspects of our lives.” 

Faraj said that resource distribution and access can only come after recording that a population needs those resources. Faraj said that the MENA community has historically been a misrepresented population on the state and federal level because they are grouped into a white monolith. Because the MENA community is misrepresented in census data, elected officials cannot properly represent them, Faraj said.

Identifying this need, lawmakers at the state and federal level have introduced new efforts to change racial categorizations. In February, California’s MENA Inclusion Act was introduced to the California State Assembly, which would require any state agency, board or commission that collects state demographic data to include MENA as a separate race category. While the California MENA Inclusion Act has stalled, in March, the federal Office of Management and Budget revised Statistical Policy Directive No. 15, requiring federal government agencies that collect demographic data to include MENA as a race category.

Amin Nash, the policy and research coordinator for the Arab American Civic Council, said that identifying the MENA population provides the state with concrete data to intervene in community-specific issues. Nash said many issues within the MENA community go unnoticed simply because these individuals are not being counted.

Government organizations such as the National Institutes of Health, which provides financial support for scientific and health research, have equity, diversity and inclusion efforts that work to uplift underrepresented identities in research. The U.S. Small Business Administration also offers awards to businesses run by socially disadvantaged individuals, using race as a consideration. Without this census designation, government organizations are unable to target and support MENA groups. 

“It’s an invisible crisis that’s happening with the community,” Nash said.

At UCLA, because it is a public institution, counting the MENA population could pave the way for more resources for the MENA community. For example, some MENA students have advocated for a MENA-specific graduation ceremony or celebration, like the existing Asian Pacific Islander graduation ceremony, Afrikan Student Union celebration and LatinX graduation celebration. 

Rachel Mobaraka, a rising fourth-year political science and Middle Eastern studies student, said that proper categorization on state surveys would lead to more support and attention towards her community. In turn, she believes that support and attention would fuel more recognition of MENA students at UCLA.

“I think that would come with better social programs and resources,” Mobaraka said. “And so maybe if there was a Middle Eastern Student Center, or a Middle Eastern graduation or Middle Eastern specific scholarships, I mean, that would just be beautiful.” 

Mobaraka said that without these programs, it is challenging for MENA individuals to find the resources, outlets, and support systems that explicitly respond to the MENA community’s identities, needs and experiences.

Despite these benefits, there have been reservations about efforts to create a MENA racial category. Nash said that some in the MENA community – especially among older generations – fear that creating a distinct racial category could lead to exclusion. 

“They don’t want to feel as if they’re any different from any other population,” Nash said. “They feel that they’re just like anybody else. They shouldn’t have a category.” 

Some also fear that this category may be used as a new frontier for Islamophobic and anti-Arab targeting. In the U.S., data collection efforts that targeted MENA communities were previously used to surveil potential terrorism, resulting in racial profiling and increased Islamophobia within the U.S. This was especially prominent during the Global War on Terror, an American-led military campaign with intelligence operations that targeted the American MENA community following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.  

Islamophobia and anti-Arab hate have also been on the rise more recently following the October 7th attacks by Hamas and the ongoing Israeli bombing campaigns and forced evictions in Palestinian territories in Gaza. The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil rights group, received 3,578 complaints between October and December of 2023. This was a 178% increase compared to a similar period in 2022. 

The Arab American Institute states that distrust of government surveys among MENA immigrants contributes to the undercount of the MENA population in the U.S. Nash said although the existing data collected on the MENA population is laced with negativity, new demographic data is something that can be accessed and utilized to benefit MENA communities. 

Regardless of not having the same recognition and representation at UCLA as other identities, many MENA students at UCLA have found a sense of belonging and community through the MENA cultural organizations on campus. These organizations include ethnicity-specific organizations, pre-professional clubs and umbrella organizations like the Middle Eastern Student Association and Middle Eastern and North African Law Student Association. 

These spaces offer students the opportunity to build connections with those who share the same ethnic background as them and learn about other parts of the diaspora. Mobaraka, MESA’s internal vice president from 2023-2024, said MESA welcomes virtually any members who want to learn more about the Middle East. Additionally, MESA is secular and encompasses multiple religious groups and backgrounds, including anyone who identifies as Southwest Asian and North African. 

Khalilieh, who was also MESA’s social media chair from 2023-2024, said she did not feel like she had found her place at UCLA during her first year. That was until she had met someone on MESA’s board who encouraged her to apply for a leadership position in MESA. 

“Being on board and being this involved with MESA at UCLA has been the most fulfilling thing I’ve ever done,” Khalilieh said. “Not only did I get a very close group of friends with everyone on board, but I got to experience other Middle Eastern cultures that I had never had access to.”

Throughout the year, these MENA organizations put on a variety of socials and cultural events. On April 23, MESA partnered with the Arab-Interest Women’s Association and the Lebanese Student Association to have a dabke night. Dabke is a traditional Arab group dance typically performed at weddings and other celebrations. Earlier in April, MESA also held a tatreez making workshop to teach students about the traditional Palestinian embroidery. 

“There’s just such a rich history there about what tatreez means to the Palestinian people,” Antowan, MESA’s 2023-2024 president, said. “For a lot of people, it’s like a way for them to self-express, whether that’s telling a story, whether that is passing something down as an heirloom. But it also was a form of resistance for a lot of people.” 

A number of MESA’s events this year have been about advocacy, particularly in light of the ongoing mass suffering of civilians in Gaza. Between October and November of 2023, MESA organized a Krispy Kreme fundraiser to raise money for the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund which raised over $24,000. 

“We were working to bring humanitarian aid to the people who are suffering in Gaza,” Antowan said. “And that was very important to us because we wanted to contribute to the community as best as we can in that humanitarian capacity, while also giving everyone a way to do that.” 

For Natalie Ashkar, a rising fourth-year environmental science student and LSA’s president, advocacy includes positive representation as well.

“It’s really more than just celebrating Lebanese culture and having some fun socials,” Ashkar said. “It’s about reshaping the narrative about the Middle Eastern community, and making sure that there’s positive representation for our culture.” 

The California MENA Inclusion Act and the revisions to Directive No. 15 are just one step in a direction towards more accurate representation of the U.S.’s population, Antowan said. However, he said the implications of this legislation have a very tangible reality, pushing the concept of representation off the pages of surveys and into fields such as medical research. 

Antowan hopes that these pieces of legislation will push people to want to better understand their identity and sense of self. But it’s just one piece of the puzzle. He also hopes that in the process, spaces like MESA can help showcase the diversity of the MENA region to foster learning. 

“Hopefully by then people just continue to develop that sense of self,” Antowan said. “And we can all just understand ourselves a little bit better – and hopefully others – so that we can have better connections with each other.”