DEARBORN — U.S. Census Bureau has decided to initiate plans to test a new classification for persons from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region for possible inclusion in the 2020 Census. The bureau is receiving feedback on the category.

Inclusion on the Census has been a major Arab American issue for the past two decades. 

ACCESS Executive Director Hassan Jaber, who is a member of the nationwide Census National Advisory Committee on Racial, Ethnic and Other Populations, described the step as a “monumental achievement” for the Arab American community.

Jaber said the inclusion of Arab Americans on the Census is important for two main reasons.

“The law mandates that everyone needs to be counted,” Jaber told The Arab American News. “But the most important reason is that the Arab American community has needs that are not being addressed by the government, because we don’t show up in these statistics and data.”

Jaber explained that these overlooked needs range from education to economics to health care. 

He said the Arab American population has unique challenges, which would be ignored if Arabs are not recognized as their own separate ethnic groups. He cited the need for bilingual education and high rates of emphysema infections as examples of conditions affecting Arab Americans that require special attention. 

“Even in the area of civil rights, when we are not counted, we become an invisible community, a marginalized community,” Jaber added. “It’s very critical to us to be included. It’s been a long struggle.”

He said the MENA category is inclusive in that it covers racial minorities in the Arab World, including Berbers and Kurds. 

The U.S. Census definition of White is “people having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East or North Africa.” Early Arab immigrants from Greater Syria, which was under Ottoman rule at the beginning of the 20th Century, lobbied and won court battles to be counted as White to circumvent laws restricting the immigration of people of Asian descent. 

Jaber said Arab Americans should not worry about losing any privileges if they are counted as a minority.

“Even though we are counted as White, we are not included in the White privilege,” he said. “The real data is not benefiting us. It is going to the White population, so it is really a false notion that we benefit from being counted as White. And I don’t know where this idea comes from. In practicality, we are not White. We have different needs.” 

Jaber said he and Akram Khater, a Lebanese American studies professor at North Carolina State University, are representing Arab Americans on the Census National Advisory Committee.

“It took some convincing that the Census needs at least to test the viability of the question and we have a good support from the team on the Census,” he said. “We also have been in communication with allies from the Turkish community and the Iranian community about the MENA classification and we succeeded in gaining their support for it.”

According to Jaber, after the feedback period on the MENA box is done, the Census will test the new category in focus group communities with a concentration of people of Middle Eastern and North African descent. 

But even if the testing leads to the approval of the category, the new format of the 2020 Census needs to be passed by Congress. Jaber said the political aspect of the issue will be “huge” in the legislature.

“It’s going to be the most challenging phase for us to be on the Census.” 

Jaber also said the MENA box already has the backing of the Hispanic Caucus in Congress, which made it a legislative priority. He explained that Arab and Latino Americans have a similar struggle in that they want to be count as an ethnic group, not a race. 

“For example the Afro-Cubans are of African descent, but their ethnicity is Hispanic,” he said. “Same for Egyptians; they are African, but they are ethnically Arab. And that’s our argument.”

Jaber praised Helen Samhan, the former executive director of the Arab American Institute, for her commitment to the cause of representing Arabs on the Census. 

“She has done so much to keep this issue going,” he said. “Helen did a lot of research and convinced many Middle Eastern academics to be involved and provide scholarly arguments.”

The Census has estimated the number of Arabs in the United States at 1.5 million people by calculating them through their places of origin on the American Community Survey. But Jaber suspects the actual number of Arab Americans is threefold what the Census estimates, because many Arab Americans put “other” as their ethnicity on the survey and do not get to the place of origin under White. 

“Even as an aggregate of the White population, we are undercounted,” Jaber said.  

He added that he hopes that the next Census will have many sub-categories, ranging from Middle Eastern countries to racial and ethno-religious groups that would cover everybody under the MENA box. 

Asked about the chances of the MENA box being on the 2020 Census, Jaber said it’s 50/50. 

“I think we will go though the testing period and have a very positive response,” he said. “But I think the Congress is where we might find difficulties.”

Jaber urged community members to voice their support for the MENA box by emailing their comments to Jennifer Jessup at the Census Bureau at jjessup@doc.gov. 

The Arab American Institute has a pre-drafted letter of support at //www.aaiusa.org/page/speakout/MENA-Category-Testing-Comments.