Impact Of Discrimination On Arab Americans

In this tedtalk, Melissa Boigon, who studies Islam and its relationship to the Arab-Israeli conflict, talks about how Islamophobia has become more of a fear of Arabs over the last 10 years. She thinks that has to do with the connotation to terrorists groups such as Al-Qaeda, and the way middle east conflict is portrayed in The United States today. She also discusses how American Entertainment portrays Arabs, saying that it's propaganda in the form of entertainment.

| The United States citizens who are Spanish-speaking who were somehow brought into the country due to the end results of the Mexican War are considered as being Mexican Americans. Hispanic immigration into the United States is caused because of two reasons: an escape from any political persecution and for economic opportunities (Rodriguez, 1995).

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

By World War II, the Arab American community was virtually indistinguishable from the larger American community, a process that was facilitated by their shared Christian faith and the fact that they did not exhibit easily discernible racial or ethnic features that distinguished them from the general population. By time the second generation of Arab Americans came of age, most did not speak Arabic and many had only a superficial understanding of their Arab heritage. The three major Arab American writers of this period, Vance Bourjaily, William Peter Blatty, and Eugene Paul Nassar, saw themselves as mainstream writers and did not identify as Arab Americans. On the few occasions when they did address the issue of their ethnic identity, they were

Historically, the United States of America has a long history of shaping its ideology from a series of significant events that hold unspeakable brutality. This leads Americans to draw conclusions, which often leads to denouncing a particular body of people. For example, the enslavement of African Americans, the decimation of Native Americans, and the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Currently, while enduring several years in the U.S., Muslim Americans face similar difficulties as a human being would. However, these hardships differ because they include U.S. discrimination triggered by 9/11, current terrorist events, and negative reinforcement from the media and the general public. Muslim Americans experience the harmful effects of terrorism because acts of terrorism influence the way the U.S. views and thinks about Muslims.

Chapter 9: “Middle Eastern and North African Americans” gave me a different prospective from the negatively outlook portrait by the media in America. I realize that this group is far more that what we hear around. Immigrants from this region of the world are people who are simply looking for a better life, just like any other immigrant group that is migrating to America. Despite their hardship suffer from wars in their native countries that are usually cause by their indifferences in religion and sometimes by dysfunctional governments that don’t care for the wellbeing of the people. I found very interesting to know that most of the individuals from this groups come to the United States a lot more prepared in terms of education than other groups. Although,

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

Sayed et al. (2003) research show the importance of Arab American unique characteristics affect the healing process for those individuals who are not custom to the American way of life. Arab American families is only looking for respect from other cultures that already prejudge them by only seeking their culture from an outside view. The common feeling of at Arab American is alienation from a American because of their culture beliefs, customs, and values. Prejudice and discrimination for Arab Americans may cause major psychological issues (i.e. depression, low self-esteem, and lack of

After several incidents that happened around the world, peoples view on Arabs changed. The media played a big role in “the stereotyping of Arabs”. It is one of the main reasons for people to think the way they are about Arabs. Many

There are Christians and Jews. There are Muslims that are extremist and do not tolerate anyone who is not Muslims. But the Muslims that follow the Qur’an respect other religions. It is a belief that Arabs, at least the ones in Morocco are backwards, and uncivilized. Which is the total opposite. It is assumed that all women are oppressed by men, again it depends on which way they interpret the Qur’an (Intelligence, 2006). A lot of the radical Arabs take the Qur’an literally, and does not discern the true meaning found in the scriptures. Arab Muslims in Morocco have a lot in common with American families. But considering where they live they might be a bit more resilient. I remember Rani came over to my house to help me paint, he was not aware that our paint came already mixed, they had to do that

Really anyone who could possibly fit the stereotypical description of an Arab. Harsh attitudes towards these people have drastically enhanced from the events of September 11st, and remained present in society today.

Arab people stem from many different regions including 22 countries: Algeria, Bahrain, the Comoros Islands, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Mauritania, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen ("Arab American," 2014). The Arab culture include several ethnicities such as Shias, Sunni, Druze, Ismalites, and Nusayr (Matusiak, 2013). It is important to know Arabs are not a race, but a diverse culture ("Facts about Arabs," 2014). The Arab people are measured as being among the “most educated” population with a higher percentage of college educations than the American population (Matusiak, 2013). Family is important in the Arab culture. Many Arabs live within close proximity of family and have close relationships ("Arab American," 2014).

Many people in the world today get confused on the differences between cultural and religious terms, and while there are a lot of different terms, confusion comes in when people begin to define these terms through stereotyping or the association fallacy. The association fallacy is a type of hasty generalization used when a claim is made by associating something with an irrelevant element. For example, stating because a person is both an Arab and Muslim, then all Arabs are Muslim is an association fallacy. Ignorance of the true definitions of the terms Arabs and Muslims is hard for the people who belong to those cultures or religions. In today’s politically correct society, this is a major problem for Muslims who are frequently called Arabs and vice versa leading to bigotry and hatred. The differences between Arabs and Muslims is so large, in fact, it is mind-boggling so many individuals confuse the two.

To even begin to delve into our topic, we must first define the following terms: Arab, Muslim and Middle East. Millions of the people that fall into these categories live in the United States, yet we hardly take the time to learn to differentiate between them thanks to the negative connotations that are associated with each of these terms (Chin, 2009).

The misrepresentation of minorities is frequent in Hollywood films and Arabs are one of the many minority groups Hollywood misrepresent. Arabs are portrayed negatively in films for long time even before 9/11. The Arabs characters are portrayed with always having accent, wearing traditional attire, untrustworthy, aggressive and almost always associated with terrorism. The continuously falsification could lead to stereotypes, misjudgment, and damage to Arabic culture.