Arab American Immigrants

As I begin to type this essay, I cannot help but feel an oquet barcode over my head. This barcode, having been with me since birth, contains all of the terms used to describe me: Muslim, Brown skinned, Arab American. These terms, a result of the natural human characteristic to categorize what we see, are fallible, inaccurate, and potentially dangerous. For example, because of these terms entire groups of people can become labeled to certain attributes. As an Arab American, people assume many things about before I even speak with them.It is hard to have a different view of people when all you see or hear of them are from indirect sources such as the media, whose priority object is to make profit, even if it requires the creation of a twisted

After the attacks on September 11, 2001, media approaches have altered. On Television shows and movies, in newspapers and on the radio, there has been an increase in hate crimes targeting Arabs and Muslims. Most coverage today follows a script that represents Arabs and Muslims only in the context of terrorism. Evelyn Alsultany wrote a book called Arabs and Muslims in the Media in 2012. The stories explained the new standards in racial and cultural representations after 9/11.

Many young Arab Americans were forced to work under hostile circumstances. Reports reveal that Muslims and Arab Americans were traumatized due to the discriminatory behaviors in the workplaces. According to Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), over 800 cases of work discriminations were recorded following the year of 9/11(Hussein 2003). The major discriminatory activities included various types of harassment in the workplaces, ineffective job placements and no consideration for promotions. According to Faisal Rabby and William M. Rodgers, “...9/11 and the anti-terrorism measures were associated with a relative

In the airports, Muslim people became “the usual suspects”, were thoroughly searched and often interrogated. In her article, O’Connor claims that the lives of American Muslims changed forever, and the statement is hard to disagree with (“How 9/11 Changed These Muslim Americans’ Lives Forever.”) Those who had nothing to do with the September 11 attacks, their children and grandchildren were sentenced to face racism, hate and violence.

Part 1: Rethinking the Color Line Article 18: In “How Does It Feel To Be a Problem? Being Young and Arab in America”, by Moustafa Bayoumi, talks about the experiences Arabs in America faced in the twentieth century and how that has changed after 9/11. At the turn of the twentieth century, immigrants coming from Arab nation states experienced bigotry and worried about “becoming too American or different from Americans”(Bayoumi 155), however they also were employed and self employed. Opening their own stores and they also published newspapers.

What are Arab Americans? An individual can be classified as “Arab” if the person speaks Arabic, practices Islam, and identifies with the traditions of Arabic-speaking peoples. (Aguirre and Turner 276)These individuals are usually subject to negative and differential treatment by others. It is essential to identify the differential treatment of Arab Americans by others in society. The mistreatment of Arabs in the United States can be contributed to many factors; however, there have been certain events that have occurred in the United States, which have increased and enraged these strong emotional feelings in many Americans. Discrimination and stereotypes of a culture or group mainly develops from a lack of understanding. We can become a

The abrupt public focus on Muslims has changed the significance of being a Muslim American for many people. There were some who wanted to hide their Muslim identity or distance themselves as a result of all the negative attention they were receiving. Muslim Americans were affected by a societal backlash in 9/11, mainly by the war on terror. The suspicion of Muslim terrorist intensified after 9/11 that shifted racial identity amongst citizens, rather than it being a person who follows the religion (religious category) it became a racial identity. However, on the other hand in her research, Ewing has found that, "In some cases, the backlash has also led to an affirmation or strengthening of Muslim identification” (p. 19). Not all post 9/11 community attitudes toward Muslims are negative, in some cases as such it strengthen one’s identity. The importance is how these experiences feed into the process of how one felt before and after the tragic event and how the way Muslim communities and identities have

Racial profiling increased drastically for Arabs and Muslims following the attack on September 11, 2001. As a result of this tragedy, many began to associate Arabs and Muslims as evildoers. They were seen to as sinister individuals who hijacked airplanes with bombs attached to their body. However, Muslims and Arabs are not the only victims of racial profiling. Hispanics and African Americans have experienced this same treatment due to the color of their skin. This could result from the belief that whites are treated with respect, royalty, and luxury. Because of America’s history, and the decade of enslavement, African Americans are defined as “slaves and dirty animals” whereas Hispanics were stereotyped to have the career as housemaids and farmer workers with the nickname “wetbacks”. Such depictions of these individuals are still an issue in today’s society.

A collective complaint amongst racial minorities are the preposterous assumptions formulated about them based on movies and television shows. Stereotypes are embraced in countless movies and television shows through the way certain races are portrayed. Common misconceptions that are typically pointed towards a specific race are encouraged by the media. “When the blockbuster ‘True Lies’ debuted in 1994... Arab American advocacy groups staged protests in several major cities... because the film featured a fictional terrorist group called the ‘Crimson Jihad,’ the members of which Arab Americans complained were portrayed as one-dimensionally sinister and anti-American” (Nittle).

On September 11, 2001, nineteen hijackers associated with the terrorist group Al-Qaeda attacked the United States. They flew two planes into the World Trade Center and also attacked the Pentagon resulting in the deaths of 2,996 people. Fifteen of the nineteen hijackers were Saudi Arabian, two were from the United Arab Emirates, one was from Lebanon, and one was from Egypt. Following the 9/11, racial profiling in the United States resulted in people of Arab or South Asian origin being targeted in the United States as they were perceived to look similar to the Islamic terrorists of groups such as Al-Qaeda. The racial profiling of Americans of Arab or South Asian descent has led to their rights, guaranteed to them by the U.S. law and Constitution have been violated, which is a grave injustice..

News Media as well as entertainment helped fuel the suspicion against Arab-Americans, with sensationalized news reports and depicting Arabs as terrorists. This worked to desensitize the average American to the plight of the Arab American while also inciting their anger towards a group of innocent people. Suheir Hammad writes in reference to a woman she saw crying in a parked car after the terrorist attack in New York, “I offered comfort, extended a hand she did not see before she said, ‘we’re gonna burn them so bad, I swear, so bad’” (254). An act done by a group of Arab-Americans had become the responsibility of all Arab-Americans. They were to be responsible for this act; they are the problem, because they are foreign. No ‘real’ American would

Arabs have been coming and settling in the United States for quite a while. In fact, Arabs have been coming here for hundreds of years. Spanish explorers brought Arab slaves to the United States in as early as the 15th Century.

Social-systemic violence, segregation, micro-aggression, exploitation, and the violation of civil rights are just a few examples of the impacts of this unsettling problem. George Fourlas wrote an article detailing the complex, dangerous, and deep-rooted discrimination that Arab-Americans face. Fourlas says, “Beyond micro-aggressions that attempt to undermine one’s understanding of one’s ontological status and thus ultimately insult, the racialization of Middle Eastern peoples in the United States also justifies various forms of overt violence” (109-110). Throughout this article Fourlas argues that the racialization of Arab-Americans is “rooted in the repetitive treatment of certain peoples as objects of war to be degraded, exploited, dominated, and destroyed” (101). Clearly, it is obvious that this racially fueled discrimination is not only an, but a very apparent form of violence and ill-treatment as well. Racial profiling causes Arab-Americans to question their own identity, creating a plethora of questions of one’s own character and morale. The way racialization in the United States has been amplified over the years has built a foundation for these issues to develop

Mogahed, a Muslim woman living in America at the time of the terrorist attack on 9/11, speaks about her experience with white America after the attack. She talked about what made her attracted to the Islam religion and how her friends reacted when she started wearing the Hijab. Her young friends asked her why she would willingly subject herself to the oppression that Americans see in Islam, she told them that wearing the Hijab is actually a feminist act. After 9/11 she faced strange looks, profanity shouted at her on the street, and the fear of what might happen if she didn't listen to the news. Muslims were told to stay indoors and not

Jamal, A. A. (2008). Race and Arab Americans before and after 9/11: From invisible citizens to visible subjects. Syracuse University Press.