Dr. Nadine Naber quoted in New York Times Article “No Box to Check: When the Census Doesn’t Reflect You”
Nadine Naber, a professor of Arab American studies at the University of Illinois Chicago, said the lack of a MENA box made it difficult to track instances of racism and discrimination, both for law enforcement and in workplaces and universities.
At the same time, people of Middle Eastern and North African descent are often “hypervisible” and subjected to racial profiling, and stereotypes associating Muslims and Arabs with terrorism persist with pernicious consequences, Dr. Naber said. And there may be some reluctance to self-identify as Middle Eastern and North African on official forms for that very reason, she added.
“People lack access to resources and are being discriminated against, but we can’t respond because we don’t have the data,” said Dr. Naber, who is an author of a study of Arab Americans in Chicago released last year called “Beyond Erasure and Profiling.”
Read the full article here: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/02/25/us/census-race-ethnicity-middle-east-north-africa.html?unlocked_article_code=1.YU0.v12C.doNq89IX41G3&smid=url-share