Strategic Ethnicity: Racial Negotiation within Arab American Advocacy Organizations

• In Event: 085 - Regular Session. Arab American Identity

Abstract

This paper analyzes ongoing discussions about racial identity taking place between leading Arab American civil rights advocates. Discussions over Arab Americans and racial identity in the context of advocacy organizations have persisted for decades. In recent years, several young, mostly second-generation activists have issued calls for race-based coalition building, arguing that Arab Americans should identify as “people of color” and organize together with Black and Latino activists. These calls have led to debates with older, mostly first-generation leaders in prominent advocacy organizations such as the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) and the Arab American Institute (AAI). Many advocates working with these longstanding organizations argue that the majority of Arab Americans do not identify as “people of color,” and they therefore maintain that Arab Americans are best described an ethnically-defined – not racially-defined – community. With data drawn from interviews with leading Arab American advocates and participant observation, this paper uses racial formation theory to understand the broader impacts of strategic organizing around ethnic and racial identity within and among Arab American advocates. Two parallel efforts to gain official recognition for Arab American identity are described. One of these efforts is intentionally race-conscious, while the other is intentionally race-neutral. The paper concludes by showing how the outcome of debates around racial identity among Arab American advocates will have an important effect on issues like war, torture, mass surveillance, racial profiling, and other manifestations of so-called Islamophobia.

Author

• Erik Love, Dickinson College