Washington, DC – A United States government advisory panel has recommended adding a Middle East and North Africa (MENA) category to the US Census – a longstanding demand from Arab-American activists whose communities have been counted as white for decades.
In preliminary recommendations released on Thursday, a working group of representatives of various government agencies called for adding “a response category for Middle Eastern and North African, separate and distinct from the ‘White’ category” on the Census.
The survey is sent out every 10 years to households across the US and is used to determine the allocation of federal government funds across health care and education, among other areas.
Maya Berry, executive director of the Arab American Institute (AAI), a Washington, DC-based think tank, told Al Jazeera she was “beyond thrilled” by the news, which she said paves the way for the accurate counting of people from the MENA region.
“There’s literally nothing that isn’t impacted by Census data in terms of everyday American lives,” Berry said.
The working group also recommended combining the Census’s race and ethnicity questions, which are currently separate. This had complicated efforts to add a MENA category to the document amid questions on whether such an option would fall into the race or ethnicity section.
The rules for collecting race and ethnicity data have not been changed since they were set in 1997.
The working group was tasked with “proposing recommendations for improving the quality and usefulness of Federal race and ethnicity data”, the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) said on Thursday.
The office added that it will solicit public comments on the issue until April 12 before making final recommendations next year for the 2030 Census.
Arab-American advocates have for years argued that being counted as white renders their communities invisible and deprives them of much-needed resources. It also makes it tough to conduct health and social research on US residents from the MENA region.
