When Individual, Social and Institutional Definitions of Identity Do Not Line Up
In our work in Diversity, Violence, and Recognition, we embrace a constructivist approach to ethnicity, but generally take post-conflict identity groups as sticky and widely accepted. Yet, identity is often contested. We invited Amanda Sahar D’Urso to discuss her fascinating research on identity contestation for people of Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) descent in the United States. Amanda is a Ph.D. candidate in political science at Northwestern University. Her work provides a lens for understanding situations where there is disagreement over what identities should be recognized and to whom they should be applied. Welcome to the blog, Amanda!
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One of the central themes of Diversity, Violence, and Recognition (Oxford University Press, 2020) is the question, ‘is it better to recognize ethnic differences or not?’ Both within and outside of the context of violent ethnic conflict, a central question remains: who is doing the recognizing? What labels are they using to do so and with what consequences?
My research investigates these questions with respect to people of Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) descent in the United States. MENA individuals are legally classified as White in the US, but does this group fit into the US conception of Whiteness?
I employ a three-dimensional framework to help isolate the aspects of identity and recognition in which we are interested: the institutional, the psychological, and the social. Using this framework can help scholars identify the friction points between dimensions of identity and recognition. At the psychological level, individuals may or may not identify with—or recognize themselves to be a part of—certain ethnoracial labels or groups. At the social level, society at large may tend to recognize certain people as being members of certain ethnoracial groups—or not. At the institutional level, governments can codify or modify different labeling categories through various recognition strategies and choices.
Individuals may recognize or identify with certain groups, but perhaps, society-at-large does not generally use those labels. In the context of the United States, for example, many South Asian individuals consider themselves to be ‘Asian’, but most Americans do not use the label ‘Asian’ when referring to South Asians. Most use ‘Asian’ to refer to East Asians. In other cases, perhaps both individuals themselves and society-at-large recognize individuals to be a part of an ethnoracial group, but the label does not exist at the institutional or political level. This is the case with Middle Eastern and North Africans (MENA) in the United States.
My decision to study MENA identity in the US arose naturally given my background as a woman of Persian descent. My personal experiences exemplify the difficulties that arise when one’s identity does not line up with social or institutional definitions. Growing up in the US, particularly coming of age during 9/11, meant that I was visible in ways that other White children were not. The rhetoric of fear and the evils of the Middle East which were used as a lens to process 9/11 were passed from parents to children. And their children brought those views to school and made sure I—and other MENA children—knew about them. I never felt White. It was a shock when applying for university, there was no MENA option. My first thought was, “Was I Asian this entire time?” My personal experiences meant that my natural reaction was to gravitate toward Asian before White. When I asked my college counselor about it, they informed me that I was White. In graduate school, one of my colleagues mentioned to me that he was surprised that a school where he was interviewing had indicated they were majority-White, but when he went to interview the students, a large portion of them were Arab and MENA individuals. He asked me about research in political science on the topic. When I went to learn more, I realized most of the field in American politics focuses on Islam and Islamophobia and often conflates MENA and Muslims. This is highly problematic because most Muslims in the world are in South and East Asia, not in the MENA region. Moreover, MENA individuals are not religiously nor ethnically homogenous. MENA individuals are ethnically diverse yet studying Arabs only leaves out the many ethnic groups which reside in Arab majority countries—such as Kurds or Amazighs—and non-Arab majority countries—such as Iran and Turkey. But this research isn’t just about my personal experiences. It’s also about the high visibility of the group and low representation within our government. MENA individuals are not eligible for minority-based assistance. If a community organization serves MENA individuals in the area, it would legally be a White-serving organization.
Learning from History
The US has a history of disputes over ethnic identity recognition, and these disputes played out in legal battles over who should be accepted as White for naturalization purposes. Legally, the US government classifies MENA individuals as White. MENA individuals have been institutionally classified as White as far back as 1909. In the early 1900s, only migrants who were classified as White or Black could naturalize and become US citizens (see, Naturalization Act of 1870). MENA immigrants who wanted to naturalize and become US citizens had to go to court and argue they were White.
Historically, there has been much inconsistency in labeling MENA individuals in the US. Two of the most famous racial prerequisite court cases were Ozawa (1922) and Thind (1923). In both cases, the petitioners, who were of Asian origin, were denied White status and unable to naturalize. In the case of Ozawa, a Japanese immigrant who argued his skin was White, the judge denied his petition for Whiteness because he was not ‘racially White’, even if he had White skin pigmentation. In the case of Thind, he argued he was of Aryan descent, and thus racially White. In a ruling that contradicted Ozawa, the same judge denied his petition under the presumption that a ‘common person’ would not identify him as White, even if he was ‘racially White’. In the case of Thind, the legal decision came down to how society-at-large would label Thind’s race. While in these racial prerequisite court cases, Asians were denied White status, many immigrants from the MENA region were nonetheless given White status and allowed to naturalize. In some cases, the MENA petitioners were given White recognition because they were ‘racially White’ and in other cases, it was because a ‘common person’ would identify the MENA petitioner as White. And as I discuss in my dissertation, there is reason to believe that Christianity played a role in determining White status.
New Contribution
My own research uses multiple methodological approaches to gain insights on the interplay of the individual-psychological, social, and institutional dimensions of identity contestation. I use historical records to investigate the role religion played in early 20th-century court decisions on how to classify MENA individuals. MENA individuals are highly visible and highly racialized—both separate from and in conjunction with Islam (as not all MENA individuals are Muslim). Indeed, beginning in the 1930s, most of the MENA immigrants to the US were Muslim, instead of Christian as they had been. In fact, the trend in the racial prerequisite court cases suggests a pattern where MENA petitioners who were Christian were more often determined to be White, relative to petitioners who were Muslim.
To study societal perceptions of MENA individuals, I use an experiment embedded in a survey. I find that non-MENA White Americans are less likely to recognize Muslims as White relative to Christians, regardless of which country that individual originated from. Moreover, they are less likely to recognize Iranians as White relative to Russians, regardless of religion. And finally, those most often recognized as White needed to be both European and Christian. This suggests that religion and country of origin each play unique roles in determining who is societally recognized as White and who is not.
Lastly, I also focus on what MENA identity may mean to MENA individuals themselves. I do this by conducting a survey experiment with MENA respondents—using one of the very few surveys of this population in the US—as well as conducting in-depth interviews with MENA individuals. MENA individuals, across countries of origin, ethnic backgrounds, religion, and generations, express what MENA identity means to them. Thus far, the interview suggests that pan-MENA identity is not as strong as country of origin, or religious identity, but it is an important identity in connecting with other individuals who are of MENA descent in the US.
There are not a lot of scholars researching MENA American identity within political science. Thus, Doctor Youssef Chouhoud’s work on this topic is invaluable. In addition to Dr. Chouhoud’s work, my research has been inspired by scholars such as sociologists Doctors Atiya Husain, Neda Maghbouleh, and Nadine Naber, historians such as Doctor Sarah Gualtieri, and other political scientists such as Doctors Nazita Lajevardi and Kassra Oskooii. Each of these scholars contributes to different aspects which are constitutive pieces of a MENA identity: Arab, Iranian, and Muslim identities. They are among those without whom I could not do this research. Together our work speaks to the ongoing contestation and evolution of identity categories in the US.
