Chicagoland Study Shows Why We Need a MENA Category in The U.S. Census
"Chicagoland Study Shows Why We Need a MENA Category in The U.S. Census"
In a piece in the Chicago Reporter, Nadine Naber discusses how work on IRRPP's upcoming Arab Americans in Chicagoland report makes clear that adding a Middle-Eastern / North African category is critical for the U.S. Census. As Naber points out, the impossibility of accessing comprehensive data about Arab Americans’ conditions creates major problems in this country in how we think about and get appropriate government assistance to Arab Americans, allows harmful stereotypes about Arab Americans to dominate the conversation about their lives, and cannot capture important differences in Arab American experiences between different groups in this category.