Neither Seen nor Heard: How Colleges Can Name and Support the MENA (Middle Eastern and North African) Community Through MENACrit

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Thursday 8:00 am Four Seasons Ballroom 1
  In Roundtable Session: Pro-Palestinian Education (Table 8)

Abstract

This study highlights a need for consideration of how Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) students understand their racial identities given the United States’ tense history with Islam and the MENA world. Using foundational texts on critical race theory, Arab American scholarship, MENA students, and academia’s silencing of Palestinian solidarity, this study examines this study illustrates the need for MENA representation in U.S. education. This paper argues that the Global North’s erasure of MENA identity has enabled academia’s silencing of Palestinian voices and offers a possible solution through the creation of MENACrit, a CRT-inspired framework to center MENA identity as distinct White coloniality.

Author

• Hannah Mesouani, University of San Diego