People of Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) descent are categorized as non-White in many Western countries but counted as White on the US Census. Yet, it is not clear that MENA people see themselves or are seen by others as White. We examine both sides of this ethnoracial boundary in two experiments. First, we examined how non-MENA White and MENA individuals perceive the racial status of MENA traits (external categorization), and then, how MENA individuals identify themselves (self-identification). We found non-MENA Whites and MENAs consider MENA-related traits—including ancestry, names, and religion—to be MENA rather than White. Furthermore, when given the option, most MENA individuals self-identify as MENA or as MENA and White, particularly second-generation individuals and those who identify as Muslim. In addition, MENAs who perceive more anti-MENA discrimination are more likely to embrace a MENA identity, which suggests that perceived racial hostility may be activating a stronger group identity. Our findings provide evidence about the suitability of adding a separate MENA label to the race/ethnicity identification question in the US Census, and suggest MENAs’ official designation as White may not correspond to their lived experiences nor to others’ perceptions. As long as MENA Americans remain aggregated with Whites, potential inequalities they face will remain hidden.
Research and policy concerning the Syrian Canadian diaspora has not prioritized elders. This article adds to scholarship about the well-being of newcomers admitted via the Syrian Refugee Resettlement Initiative through a focus on grandmothers resettled within their multigenerational families. Using interviews and qualitative field research, we show how the authority and status these elder women once held in Syria may be undermined by their comparatively subordinate integration in Canada. Although new, post-migration configurations of power, care work, and community may present some opportunities, the burdens and dependencies of subordinate integration mostly constrain these elders from reclaiming their authority and status.
How have sociologists engaged the late philosopher Charles Mills’ landmark The Racial Contract (1997) in the twenty-five years since its publication? I first synthesize and periodize the corpus of sociological research citing The Racial Contract into two chronological and epistemological waves. The first wave (1997-2009) is distinguished by the scholarship of a vanguard who drew on the text, and direct engagement with Mills himself, in a paradigmatic shift away from the sociological study of race relations to the study of racism. The second wave (2010-present) is characterized by a fivefold increase in the text’s citation, tied to a resurgence of Du Boisian sociology and the early-career projects of a new generation of sociologists, as the text diffused from the sociology of race into other subfields of the discipline. I then go on to describe the influence of The Racial Contract on theory, data, and method in my own scholarship on racialization, first during my graduate studies in the United States, and later, as Sociology faculty in Canada at the University of Toronto, Mills’ alma mater. I end the essay with proposals for how a third wave of sociological engagement with The Racial Contract can more rigorously engage the text’s originating relationship to feminist political theory, as well as more actively be in dialogue with a new generation of critical philosophers who are already speaking back to us by centrally drawing on the work of sociologists.
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