The Treatment of Arab Americans

Like other ethnic minority groups in America, Arab Americans face daily challenges in their overall development and well-being. These challenges take the form of discrimination, stereotyping, and general negative reactions to them as an ethnic group.

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.

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

According to the report of FBI(2000), the number of anti-islamic hate crime incidents prior the terrorist attacks were 28. In the immediate year after 9/11, 481 incidents were reported against the Muslims and Arabs(FBI 2002). The hate crime statistics of FBI conforms a staggering increase of 1617 percent in such a short period of time. The Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) reported that over 700 violent incidents were ruthlessly targeted against Arab Americans within the first 9 weeks after the 9/11(Ibish 2003). These incidents included physical violence, death threats, harassment, mockery ,hate mails and many others. Suddenly, an unknown society was brought into the negative spotlight due to the actions of a handful of people.

September 11, 2001 is a date in history that changed the lives of people from all over the world and especially the lives of Americans. On this day nineteen militant men associated with al-Qaeda, an Islamic extremist group, hijacked four airplanes and carried out multiple suicide attacks on different locations in the United States. Two of the planes directly struck the World Trade Center located in New York City, one of the other two planes hit the Pentagon in Washington D.C., and the final plane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania before it could reach its final destination. On this day, more than 3,000 people were killed including over 400 first responding police officers and firefighters. In recent years as people look back on that day it is remembered as a time when the country was joined together by grief and showed an overwhelming amount of comfort and support to the victims and their families; it was also a time of extreme national pride. People also remember that following the attacks the economy suffered tremendously, in addition, air traffic which makes up a portion of the economy was greatly disrupted, both of which created uncertainty about the security of the financial markets critical to the success of the United States. What most people do not remember is the immediate backlash and hostility the Muslim and Arab communities received following the attacks by both civilians and the media. This is a topic that has been largely ignored by the public and media’s

1. Between September 11th and November 9th the American Arab Anti Discrimination Committee confirmed 520 violent incidents directed toward Arab Americans, and 27 incidents in which Arab Americans have been expelled from a flight. Complaints from Arab Americans to the ADC also include employment discrimination, law enforcement profiling, and tensions in schools. (ADC, 1)

Once the patriot act was enacted racial and ethnic profiling spiked. Now Muslim men are 65% more likely to be stopped for “random searches” at transportation hubs such as airports. According to Ibrahim Hooper, “American Muslims have already lost many their civil rights and All Muslims are considered suspects” (Bork). The biggest sign of this is supposedly ethnic profiling that is now occurring all over the country but mostly in airports but other places as well. “This form of discrimination is felt to be

During what is called the Great Migration (the period between 1880 and 1924), more than 20 million Arab immigrants entered the United States. The Arab immigrants that came during the 1800’s were mostly Christians who were fleeing poor economics as a result of a decline in the silk industry, which had been their foundation of the economy. The majority of these Arabs had little, if any, money and did not have much to offer in the way of education or skillset. These immigrants did not come here to stay. They planned on making some money and traveling back home to their families. The kept to their selves and started their own churches and social groups. “It is estimated that the size of this community was between 130,000-350,000 by the late 1930s” (Arabs in America, 2012, para. 6). In the 18th Century, in the State of South Carolina, the House of Representatives decided to allow Arabs living in the state to be treated as whites, instead of as the black slaves that were brought over from Africa.

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.

September 11th holds many hard and upset feelings around the world today. The harsh actions of Muslim extremists unfortunately completely changed the way Muslims are treated, especially in the United States. These events, exacerbated islamophobia. Unfortunately, “the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, connect Muslims and Islam to terrorism within the geographical borders of the United States.” (Byng) Although it has been over a decade since the attack, many still feel racist and discriminatory attitudes towards Muslims. Muslims are the targeted minority in the United States, “the 9/11 terrorist attacks shifted the social and political context for Muslims in the United States. Terrorism within the geographical borders of the United States carried out by Muslims places an identity at the center of national and global politics.” (Byng) The blame of the horrible terrorist attacks, rather than be placed on terrorists or religious extremist, has been placed on Islam in America. After September 11th, hate crimes towards Muslims skyrocketed, “the most dramatic change noted by the report was a more than 1,600 percent increase in reported hate crimes against Muslims -- a jump from 28 hate incidents in 2000 to 481 last year.”

| Arab AmericansArab American history received a significant push during the era called the Great Migration, the period between 1880 and 1924 with more than 95,000 Arabs coming from Greater Syria. By 1924, there were about 200,000 Arabs living in the U.S.

The mass media selectively promotes racial profiling. The assumptions driving terrorism profiling are not any different than “street-level” profiling—in that, a particular crime (in this case, terrorism) is most expected to be committed by members of a particular religious, ethnic, or racial group and that the members of that group (in this case, Muslims) are, in general, likely to be implicated in that manner of criminal activity…These assumptions are highly defective. The assumption that terrorist acts are inevitably perpetrated by Arabs or that the architect, of a terrorist act, is likely to be Islamic is a faulty assumption. While all the men, believed to have been, involved in the September 11th hijackings were of Arabic nationality, Richard Reid, who on December 22, 2001, attempted to ignite a volatile device on a trans-Atlantic flight, was a British citizen of Jamaican ancestry. This furthermore coincides with my line of reasoning that extremists exist throughout all cultures. In fact, prior to September 11th the deadliest act of terrorism on United States soil was initiated by [Oklahoma City bomber] Timothy McVeigh. Even non-Arabs like John Walker Lindh, a Californian, can be linked to the Taliban, al-Qaeda and

Historians, specifically American historians of the 21st century have demonstrated an interest in the Middle East in Islam, due to Americans frequent contact with the Middle East in the early 1960s. Islam and the Middle East have played a remarkable role in Americans discussion and reaction to the events that took place on September 11th, 2001. During this time Americans were beginning to regard the Middle East, Muslims, and Islam as one entity. Americans and the world regarded the Middle East as Islam and Islam as the Middle East. Thus, this correlation between the two made Muslims say Muslim Americans and Muslims in America as less western and more of another, but they were also seen as untrustworthy individuals. Additionally, prior to the September 11th, attacks and an after effect of September 11, was that Muslim men were violent and Muslim women as oppressed individuals. Thus, the perception of Islamophobia and the threat it brings to western society has impacted the discussion of Islamophobia in America.

Arabs began arriving in the United States in the early 1800s. The first large wave arrived between 1887-1913. Many single, uneducated men were included in this large wave if immigrants. They were arriving from Greater Syria in search of a better job and a higher standard of living (Lipson & Dubble, 2007). The next wave of Arab immigrants came to the United States from 1940-1970. This wave of immigrants was driven by the political events and wars going on in their home countries; many of these immigrants were refugees. In 1948 the creation of the State of Israel drastically increased the amount of Arab-Muslim immigrants (Lipson & Dubble, 2007). The third marked wave of Arab immigrants came from 1970-2000. This wave was also driven by wars and economic and political circumstances that were quickly deteriorating. The majority of these immigrants were professions of high education (Lipson & Dubble, 2007). Between 1982-1989, the amount of Arabs

This survey reveals that the problem with the Islam faith is not racial: The Muslim people are welcomed, the Islam faith is not. The violence that has been perpetrated against America, whether executed or planned, has brought to fruition religious persecution not seen since the persecution of the Jews in W.W.II. This “trust no Arab” attitude has brought shame to the Constitutional intentions of freedom of religion intended by our forefathers, and has set religious tolerance back 200 years. Looking at media representation of Muslim Americans prior to 9-11, it shows religious diversity in America, depicting Muslim America as just another religious community seeking to advance and protect their interests, not unlike other Americans. After 9-11 the media portrayed representations of threat and fear, creating boundaries between Muslims and other Americans. Such depiction transforms the identity of Muslims and American religious pluralism (Byng, M. pg. 3).