Introduction
Arab Americans are such a diverse population of immigrants, who have roots that come from the countries of Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Israel, and Palestine just to name a few. Arab American immigrants started to arrive in the United States during the late 19th century. The Arab American population since then has grown to be one of the biggest growing racial groups, next to Asian Americans.
The Influence of Social Change and Advocacy
A vast majority of Arab Americans were born within the United States, due to their elders, great grandparents, parents, etc. settling into the United States. Every country of origin that the subgroup hails from has their own history, culture, language, religious beliefs, and demographic traits.
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Today the number is still growing at a alarming rate, due to wars, terrorism, and chaos that is happening within these countries are causing people to flee in pursuit of better lives for their families. Many pregnant Arab immigrant women are among those fleeing their country of origin, and a lot of them are so close to giving birth, and by the time they arrive on the United States soil, most of them being refugees, end up having babies born within the United States that become Arab Americans.
One major social problem that Arab Americans face today, is racism and having been labeled as terrorist. In fact the treatment against Arab Americans is very violent and cruel compared to past decades before. Various reports have inquired that after the 9/11 attack on New York, and other attacks that have happened around the world, people have since then viewed Arab Americans as a different type of people, there are harsh feelings that they don’t belong in the United States, because they are dishonest people, nomads, and users. (The Atlantic, 2016). Although
Arab Americans are defined primarily of their religious identity and they reside in all 50 states. The first generation of immigrants from the Middle East dates back to late 1800s. The majority of immigrants’ population came from Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine and Jordan. Religion plays an important role in the Arab society and most of their way of life is not necessary because of their religion. Like many other immigrants, the reason these immigrants migrated to the United States was to escape the religious persecution, an opportunity to build a better life. Majority of how Arabs interact and the way their culture is has to do with the Koran and it is one of the foundations of Islamic law. In the Arab American culture, family is an important aspect and everyone plays their respective role. Fathers are the head of the households and are expected to provide for his wife and children. The women has restrictive education and they help support the family by caring for the house. Kids take on a role are taught by their parents depending on their gender. Boys are most likely to follow the footsteps of the father to prepare to care for his own family one day. The girls learn the basics of running a household. It is common for the children to live with their parents until they marry or live with them to care for them as they age and can no longer care for themselves. The Arab culture also value respecting the elders and they are often the decision makers in the family. The family
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,
A diverse community is often only seen in terms of black or white and to an outsider, the Arab community might be viewed as a homogenous population. However, Arab Americans residing in Metro-Detroit trace their roots to over 22 countries, different religious beliefs, and various ethnic ties. Like the ‘melting pot’ or ‘salad bowl’ metaphors that are used to describe America, the Arab community in Metro Detroit has cultivated a mosaic of its own. With Metro Detroit being the largest group of Arabs outside of the Middle East, there is great potential in creating a movement to combat Islamophobia, Arab discrimination as well as have a voice in politics. However, likewise to America, multicultural societies can often derive power dynamics, different
Armenian-Americans are descendants of ancient people from the Northeast region of Asia Minor dating back to over 2500 years ago. They lacked a homeland but have been spread in most regions of the world. Armenians in America came from Europe at the beginning of 1600s. The Armenian
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
When it came to Arab culture there were many restrictions and less freedom with appearance and fashion. Even though the Arab culture may have many restrictions when it came to fashion it has been modernized. The Arab culture prohibits a few dress codes that may be considered norm in American culture. As an individual who grew up in an Arab culture household you have to adapt to the culture and rituals. Just as Andy Hinds mentioned in his article, I’m considering Becoming a Sports Fan How Do I Pick a Team? “In both of these exchanges, I had that old familiar feeling of not having a clue about something that was supposed to be important to me as an American male.” It may also prohibit multiple actions that may be dealt and interpreted in other cultures in a different way. Arab culture is made up of hundreds of years old traditions. Many fashion styles are considered disintegrating in the
From the time when the European crisis started, the migration to the Americas has increased. Among all the countries in the American continent, United States is the one that has received more immigrants since the sixteenth century until the mid-twentieth century. Since then, the most of immigrants are Latin especially from Mexico. In 2013, around 41.3 million immigrants lived in the United States. They represent 13 % of the total 316 million U.S. residents. If added the U.S.-born children of immigrants they increase to around 80 million people (Migration Information Source). Thus, it is how started and continued the immigration in the U.S.
Coming from an Arab American household, there has always been an emphasis on higher education and higher socio economic status. I believe that it is something that can be found in various Arab American Communities in the United States and these standards set in the household show when you look at the statistics as to where Arab Americans stand on both educational and socio economical scales. This paper will look into the history of Arabs in the United States, as well as the demographics of the Arab community in the U.S, and cultural and physiological backings that may all have influence on education. My goal for this research paper is to find the reasons behind the Arab American strive for education and socioeconomic success and whether the Arab culture has a positive or negative influence on the success of Arab Americans.
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
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).
The world is filled with different races, cultures, religions and beliefs; everyone has a different opinion and perspectives on life. Unfortunately not everyone respects other peoples personal opinions, this had led to discrimination, stereotyping, hatred and even war. After many incidents that affected the world; Arabs started being discriminated by many people. People were stereotyping the Arabs and they had the wrong image about them.
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.
In 2002, the United States was home to 32.5 million foreign-born individuals. (Gany, Herrera, Avallone, & Changrani, 2006). The United states has often been referred to as the country of Immigrants given the number of people who immigrate here from other countries. Because of immigration, America has become a very multicultural society.
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).
Arabs never used force to invite people from other religions into their sect. some embraced Islam in the reign of Holy Prophet P.B.U.H while many are converters. Arabic language is a common language of this religion. Arabians were living in