There is no exact definition of MENA by a group like the United Nations, but it generally includes countries as far north as Turkey that border the Mediterranean Sea. While many religions and ethnicities are represented in this region, shared Arab ancestry or Islamic identity is sometimes used as a way to group countries over strict geographic boundaries.
“But these are subjective lines that are gone, and they are certainly a result of colonial preferences,” said Sahar Aziz, professor of law at Rutgers University and author of “The Racial Muslim: When Racism Quashes Religious Freedom.” “The very creation of a Middle East geographic construct was done by the British and the French, who did not have the best interest of the indigenous population.” The effort to include a MENA category on the decennial census dates back at least 30 years, Aziz said.
The racial categories used across all federal data haven’t been updated in over 25 years. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) set the five racial categories that are present on all demographic data collection in 1997: White, Black, Asian, American Indian and Other. OMB revised guidance on the collection of Hispanic ethnicity data at the same time.
— Read the full article here.
— To learn more about the history of Middle East and North Africans invisibility on the U.S. Census, read Sahar Aziz’s article Legally White, Socially Brown: Racialization of Middle Eastern Americans available here.
