MENA Migration

Middle Eastern and North Africans first began to immigrate to the United States in large groups during the early 1900s and have continued to immigrate in large numbers ever since. However, immigration from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) to the United States has drastically changed over the past twenty-five years. However, the fluctuation in the MENA immigrant population has not been properly recorded. Many MENA immigrants incorrectly identify their race out of fear or confusion, which results in incorrect data.
MENA immigrants may mark ‘white’ for a multitude of reasons. Fear of prejudice, discrimination, or racial profiling are some of the main reasons as to why MENA immigrants select ‘white’ on census and other government forms. After the attacks on September 11, 2001, many Americans’ attitudes towards people from the Middle East changed. Immediately following the attacks, hate crimes against Muslim Americans, people who were mainly immigrants from MENA, increased 1,700 percent (Ecklund & Khan). Misidentification may also be due to the fact that many people are now third or even fourth generation Middle Eastern- American, meaning that their ties to the culture …show more content…
Many events have occurred in the Middle East and North Africa that have increased immigration to the United States. In 2011, the Arab Spring swept across the whole MENA territory. The Arab Spring resulted in an ongoing civil war in Syria, two mass revolutions in Egypt, and a radical increase in violence throughout the entire Middle East and North Africa. The amount of incoming Syrian refugees and MENA immigrants seeking asylum has risen so greatly over the past six years that within that past two years alone, the refugee and asylee population has risen twenty-two percent (Batalova & Zong). A census every ten years may be the most feasible, however, does not provide the most accurate