Invisible Minority: Discrimination against Middle Eastern Americans

• In Event: 130 - Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 02. Islamophobia

Abstract

Compared to other racial minorities there has been little research done on Middle Eastern Americans and their lives. Much of the available research on Middle Eastern Americans is related to Arab Americans and their experience after the attack of September 11th of 2001. Only a few research studies have examined Middle Eastern Americans from every country in Middle East. One factor that might have contributed to this gap is that the US government does not recognize Middle Eastern Americans as a minority group. This lack of official recognition has resulted in failing to record several instances of discrimination toward Middle Easterners. According to Tehranian (2009) the lack of official recognition also leads to lack of knowledge about Middle Eastern American culture, and process of acculturation (Tehranian 2009). On the other hand Census has labeled Middle Eastern Americans as whites, which contracts the racial identification of this group by an average American who view them as “nonwhite.” (Marvasti and Mckinney 2004). The present study does not identify this population as white by arguing that what this population has experienced since their immigration to the United States has never been same as what a white person would have experienced. This research uses in-depth interviews with Middle Eastern American females to learn about their experience in using health care services. One of the most common negative experiences of racial minorities is discrimination, which originates from the common White Racial Framing.

Author

• Shaida Kalbasi, Texas A&M University