Come 2030, Arab, North African and Iranian Americans in Orange County will have their own box to check on the U.S. Census count – a move advocates say will provide a more accurate count of the community and a better understanding of challenges they face.
The new census category comes after decades of advocacy from members in the community in OC and across the country and was announced in a federal register notice at the end of last month.
Rashad Al-Dabbagh, Executive Director and Founder of the Arab American Civic Council, said that while the category still excludes members of the community like Armenian Americans and more work is needed, it’s a step in the right direction.
“This has been a long fight,” he said in a Wednesday phone interview. “For more than three decades, our community has been advocating for a checkbox that represents us.”
“This is progress.”
Faye Hezar, a specialist in the 2010 and 2020 census counts and a Newport Beach resident, said that residents in the Iranian community are excited by the news.
“We’re very happy,” she said. “Finally, we get to be counted and we can get the specific data for our community.”
In past counts, Arabs, Middle Easterners and North Africans were categorized as white, but many don’t identify as such and they say it makes their community invisible – especially when it comes to research and resources.
“In data, we are invisible. In studies, we are invisible. There’s no resources allocated for our communities, because we are counted by the federal government as white,” Al-Dabbagh said, adding the experience of white people and Middle Easterners are different.
“We know that what is not measured cannot be improved.”
Hezar said that the lack of a Middle Eastern and North African category in previous counts was puzzling and has created undercounts and a lack of data on the community.
“We realized that it was going to be challenging going to our communities, and asking them to participate in the census while there’s nothing for them to identify themselves with,” she said.
“We were having a hard time engaging the community when they’re like, why should we participate If we’re not going to get counted?”
Advocates, like Al-Dabbagh and Hezar, hope the new census box will open the door for accurate health research, help guide policy making, enforce civil rights laws, redraw voting maps and allocate a portion of the hundreds of billions of federal funding that goes to states and communities every year based in part on census data.
The lack of health research on the community has been made evident in recent years.
During the pandemic local health officials and statewide health experts admitted that a lack of data – partly due to the census categorizing Middle Easterners as white – made it impossible to see the impact COVID was having on the community in OC.
The Costs of Being Left Out
There are concerns that the expected new box still leaves some in the Middle Eastern and North African community invisible including Armenian, Sudanese and Somali Americans.
According to the federal register notice, the three groups were left out because in a test in 2015 most people who identified as Armenian, Sudanese or Somali did not pick the Middle Eastern or North African section.
A host of Armenian American organizations are pushing back against the federal government’s exclusion of their community from the MENA checkbox, arguing that they weren’t reached out to and their voices were ignored in the process.
They also say the exclusion will have severe consequences on Armenian Americans including an undercount of their community and denying them access to millions in funding and resources.
Sophia Armen, executive director of Armenian-American Action Network, a national civil rights organization, said in a Wednesday phone interview that Armenians – like Arab Americans – have long pushed for a Middle Eastern census box and called the exclusions an injustice.
“I don’t think it’s a coincidence that both indigenous and Black people were kind of left behind by the MENA checkbox in the eyes of the U.S. government,” she said.
Armen says a lack of data is a serious threat to her community – an indigenous transnational Middle Eastern North African group with millions from all over the region including present day Iran, Syria and Palestine.
“We don’t have health data on Armenians – literally life or death information,” she said. “Armenians are consistently invisibilized and so when we’re invisibilized in data, and when we’re invisibilized on the census that translates to the invisibility of our issues.”
Armen says the creation of a Middle Eastern box is still a step in the right direction.
Al-Dabbagh – who has Armenian roots – Hezar and Arab American Institute Foundation, a national civil rights advocacy group, also share her same concerns.
“There’s more work to do,” Al-Dabbagh said.
It is not only at the federal level that community members are advocating for better data collection on the Middle Eastern and North African Communities.
Earlier this year, State Assemblyman Bill Essayli (R-Riverside) introduced a bill dubbed the California MENA Inclusion Act that, if approved, would require all state agencies that collect demographic data to include a Middle Eastern or North African category.
“If this is passed, then the state of California would not wait until 2030 to start collecting data, it would do it sooner. It would also be inclusive of Armenians, Sudanese and Somali communities,” Al-Dabbagh said.
Hezar also voiced support for the state bill.
“We’re hoping that passes, and that becomes a model for the other states, or maybe the federal government makes some changes. I know it’s taken a long time,” she said.
The Population in OC
Efforts to include a Middle Eastern or North African category in the 2020 census were unsuccessful, but people were given a write-in option to elaborate on how they identify themselves .
Data published by the U.S. Census Bureau in the fall of last year based on those responses showed that California had the highest Middle Eastern and North African population in the country, with over 740,000 people self-identifying as such.
According to the data published last year, there were over 252,000 people who identified as Iranian Americans.
Based on the data, the Arab American Civic Council did their own analysis on Arab American communities in Southern California identifying the cities of Anaheim and Irvine among the top five cities with most Arab Americans in California.
According to the Civic Council, close to 7,400 Arab Americans live in Anaheim – home to Little Arabia – while Irvine is home to close to 10,000 Arab Americans.
There are roughly about 32,000 Iranian Americans, about 30,000 Arab Americans and 6,000 Armenian Americans in Orange County, according to American Community Survey data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau.
Advocates say these numbers are undercounts and hope the new category will provide more accurate data.
Hosam Elattar is a Voice of OC reporter and corps member with Report for America, a GroundTruth initiative. Contact him at helattar@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @ElattarHosam.
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