Arab Americans continue to lose out with ‘MENA’ designation

Arab Americans have been lobbying for years to be treated the same as other minority and racial groups when it comes to receiving benefits both nationally and at state level.

Those benefits include federal and state grants awarded to promote the culture of racial minorities that are recognized by the US Census Bureau. There is also the potential for political empowerment.

Being identified as “Arab” would empower the community. Unfortunately, Arab Americans instead have to use a diluted category called “MENA” (Middle East and North Africa).

As of April 2024, every state technically has a “MENA” category, after the US Census Bureau added it for race and ethnicity data collection. Every state will now collect data on this group. Unfortunately, this designation is yet to produce any results. Arab Americans have neither received more state grants nor enjoyed political empowerment through “population consolidation.”

MENA dilutes the Arab identity by mixing it with non-Arabs from the Middle East region. In the 2020 Census — the first that offered MENA as an option — 2.5 million Americans identified as such. They are divided into 27 subcategories, seven of which do not identify as Arab.

The largest of the 27 groups is Iranian (413,842), followed by the largest Arab group, Lebanese (328,137). Nearly 889,000, or a third of the MENA category, are non-Arab. As well as the Iranians, they include Israelis (137,023), Chaldeans (47,029), Assyrians (42, 372), Kurds (19,755) and a generic “other” category (228,229).

The 1.6 million American Arabs are only 62 percent of the total, which is a dilution of their identity under the misguided MENA label.

If Arabs received 66 percent of all federal grants awarded to racial groups, I guess it would be OK. But federal funding for Arab cultural activities and identity, such as for cultural centers, plays, artistry, education centers and businesses, is almost nonexistent. The biggest recipients of federal funding for their cultural activities, according to the US Census, are African Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanic Americans and Native Americans.

But it is not just about money. It is also about political empowerment, which could drive funding distribution. Arab Americans are almost completely excluded from consideration when congressional and state legislative district maps are redrawn.

When you put as many of one ethnic group into a district as possible, you give that ethnic group a stronger political voice. In Illinois, for example, when legislators have redrawn the district boundaries, they have specifically created districts that include as many Hispanic voters as possible to help augment their voice in the voting process and in government.

In one example, Illinois had two concentrations of Hispanic voters that were geographically separated from each other. But despite the distance between the two areas, they were linked by a narrow “umbilical cord” on the map, ensuring Illinois Hispanics could speak with one voice and increase their chances of electing a member of their community to Congress.

This happened in 1993, when Luis Gutierrez, a former cab driver and elected member of the Chicago City Council, won the congressional seat in that awkwardly shaped 4th District, becoming Illinois’ first Latino representative. He served until 2019, championing the rights of Hispanics in Washington.

Arab Americans in Illinois are in the same situation, with two large concentrations of population in the Chicago suburbs, one in the north and one in the south.

The MENA designation was supposed to help empower Arab political voices by consolidating the community into redrawn districts. However, no district has been redrawn to allow Arabs to focus their voter power, because they are not recognized. In fact, the opposite has happened.

In 2021, pro-Palestinian candidate Marie Newman won the Illinois 3rd Congressional District, which was often identified as having a large concentration of pro-Palestinian voters. However, that year, Illinois split this district and merged it with five others, severely weakening Arab political empowerment in the state.

Newman, who strongly represented the interests of Arab Americans in Illinois while in office from 2021 to 2023, was forced to run against a more entrenched rival after the district was carved up. She lost the election and Arab Americans lost her voice in Congress.

Arab Americans are almost completely excluded from consideration when legislative district maps are redrawn.

Ray Hanania

Illinois also has a law that requires 25 percent of all state funding to be awarded to recognized minority business enterprises. In 2023, African American Rep. Cyril Nichols, whose Illinois district includes a large Arab American population, pushed for the recognition of “Arab” as an official category for the purposes of awarding such contracts in Illinois. However, certain Arab leaders rejected the move and instead supported “MENA.”

In 2024, Illinois awarded $100 million in state contracts to minority business enterprises, including African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans and women. Neither MENA nor Arab were included in the program.

Arab Americans need to go back to the drawing board and demand that “Arab” be recognized as a category in the US Census. They also need to demand that they be included in minority business enterprise funding programs and, for the sake of self-respect, make people call us what we are, not what they want us to be.

• Ray Hanania is an award-winning former Chicago City Hall political reporter and columnist. He can be reached on his personal website at www.Hanania.com. X: @RayHanania