The political identity of Arab-Americans

The Arab community in America is a heterogeneous group composed of roughly 3 million people. More than 75% of this number are descendents of immigrants. In this paper, Younes Abouyoub, Ph.D., a visiting scholar at Columbia University, examines four aspects of the political participation of this community, namely protest politics, interest-group politics and organizations, office holding and the Arab vote, to give a clearer view of Arab-American political identity.

Abouyoub argues that although negative stereotypes about Arab isolationism are prevalent in the American culture – especially after 9/11 –, in the last decades, Arab-Americans have made a cogent progress in their political empowerment. Today, we can speak of an Arab-American constituency that attempts to integrate completely and engage in a real political participation.

This engagement is being led by a second generation of Arab-Americans that “have one of the highest per capita incomes among ethno-racial minorities. They also achieve a high degree of education and have the highest per capita self-ownership of businesses and participation and managerial position” says Abouyoub. These second-generation immigrants are more educated, more politically aware and more conscious of their identity as Arabs. Thus, they are also willing to work for the advancement of the Arab cause.

This political engagement presents several challenges including the lack of financial resources; the weak block vote of Arab-Americans; and the lack of alliances with other ethno-racial minorities such as the Latino community or the African Americans. These factors would enable the Arab-American community to advocate more effectively on issues of their interest.

Read here the paper “The Levant Migration to the USA” (copyright: Younes Abouyoub)