Making sense of the Census: Racial classification and racialization of Middle Eastern & North African (MENA) Americans

Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) individuals in the United States (US) are legally classified as White, yet they experience daily racism that contradicts this racial classification. The past decade has seen an increase in MENA communities’ activism to add “MENA” as a federal race-ethnicity category. With this study, I sought to better understand MENA individuals’ experiences when they encounter racial-ethnic demographic forms that either include or omit the MENA box. Using a concurrent transformative mixed-methods approach, I conducted an online experiment to test the effects of the MENA box on various psychological outcomes and the moderating effect of individuals’ commitment to social action on this issue. I also analyzed participants’ short-answer responses to an online survey to better understand how MENA individuals make sense of the Census’ race-ethnicity boxes, in particular the MENA box. This study’s quantitative analyses did not find evidence of an effect of the inclusion/omission of the MENA box on measures of positive and negative affect, US national identity, or state-level anxiety. Qualitative analyses, however, showed substantial differences in the psychological experiences with forms that include a MENA box compared with those that omit it. Using reflexive thematic analysis, I generated four themes to describe how MENA individuals make sense of the Census boxes. Theme 1 (The MENA Box is Humanizing) highlights the humanizing impact of seeing a MENA box included on race-ethnicity forms and the dehumanizing impact of its omission. Theme 2 (Forced Into a Box) illustrates how MENA individuals feel forced into various other (non-MENA) boxes when the MENA box is omitted. Theme 3 (A Signal of Organizational Values) describes how MENA individuals interpret the inclusion or omission of the MENA box as a signal of the humanitarian values of the organization administering the race-ethnicity survey. Finally, Theme 4 (A Lever for Equitable Access to Resources) describes a practical understanding of the MENA box and its relevance to sociopolitical representation. The analyses in this dissertation build on extant research to provide the first systematically-derived understanding of how MENA individuals make sense of their racial-ethnic classification when completing demographic forms. The insights generated in this study show how MENA Americans’ understanding of self as racialized peoples comes to bear on their experiences when faced with racial-ethnic demographic forms. They also illuminate the cognitive and affective processes that inform MENA response behaviors on these forms.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Educational Psychology

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2024

Author dc:creator

• Maghsoodi, Amir H.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Ruedas-Gracia, Nidia
• Neville, Helen A
• Avent, Cherie M
• Hunter, Carla D
• Awad, Germine H

• Middle Eastern
• North African
• MENA
• SWANA
• Middle East
• North Africa
• Census
• Race
• Race-Ethnicity
• Racial Classification
• Mixed Methods
• Thematic Analysis
• Demographics
• Demography

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2024 Amir H. Maghsoodi

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/125742

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/125742