How Wide is the Arc of Racial Solidarity? People of Color and Middle Easterners and North Africans

Abstract

Emerging work suggests that Blacks, Asians, and Latinos sometimes share a strong sense of solidarity as people of color (PoC), which unifies their political opinions on issues that strongly implicate some of these racial groups (e.g., Black Lives Matter). Yet much uncertainty remains about whether other non-White groups, beyond these traditional three, are compelled to engage in politics as PoC via this same mechanism. We investigate this with two studies focused on Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) individuals: a minoritized group with deep U.S. roots, but sparse theoretical and empirical attention in political science. Study 1 draws on in-depth interviews with MENA adults ( N=20), who suggest that, insofar as they sense solidarity with other people of color, it is because they feel racially marginalized as foreigners. Study 2 builds on this insight with a pre-registered experiment on MENA adults ( N=514), which randomly assigned them to read an article about Latinos, who are also marginalized as foreign (vs. control article). We find that exposure to treatment reliably heightens MENAs’ expression of solidarity with other PoC, which then significantly boosts support for flexible policies toward undocumented immigrants (which implicate Latinos, but not MENAs) and reduces belief in negative stereotypes of Latinos.

Shared Status, Shared Politics? Evaluating a New Pathway to Black Solidarity with Other People of Color

“…In turn, Asian individuals who sense they are discriminated as foreigners, similar to Latinos, leads Asian adults to express more solidarity with PoC, which then increases their support for policies that target Latinos, including reducing the presence of the US Border Patrol agents along the US-Mexico border. In a similar vein, other research suggests that when Middle Eastern individuals sense they are discriminated as foreigners, similar to Latinos, they also express more solidarity with PoC, with downstream increases in support for more flexible policies toward Latinos (e.g., pathway to citizenship for undocumented Latino immigrants) (Eidgahy & Pérez, 2022). Critically, multiple survey analyses and other conceptually similar experiments affirm aspects of this mediated chain reaction that produces interminority solidarity (Chan & Jasso, 2021;Sirin et al, 2016;Carey et al 2016;Merseth, 2017;Jones-Correa 2011;Zamora, 2011), which increases confidence in this proposed framework.…”

“…1, it becomes clear that broad similarities can emerge in terms of how various communities of color are discriminated against. For example, research on Asian Americans, Latinos, and Middle Eastern and North Africans (MENAs) shows that when they are exposed to information highlighting similar discriminatory treatment as foreigners, they express more solidarity with PoC, which is then associated with downstream increases in support for policies that do not implicate one's narrower ingroup (e.g., Asian American support for flexible policies toward undocumented Latino immigrants) (Eidgahy & Pérez, 2022;; see also Sirin et al, 2016;Craig et al, 2022).…”

Positioning Asian Americans in Social Cognition

“…Other communities of color, particularly Latine Americans and Arab Americans, are also stereotyped as culturally foreign (Zou & Cheryan, 2017). Highlighting this shared form of racial marginalization may facilitate greater intra-minority solidarity (Craig & Richeson, 2016;Eidgahy & Pérez, 2022). The inclusion of perceived foreignness into our field's consideration of Positioning Asian Americans 12 Asian American stereotype content reveals aspects of contemporary race relations that may otherwise go overlooked.…”

Positioning Asian Americans in social cognition

“…Asian Americans' experiences of being stereotyped as a high‐status model minority may be inconsistent with other communities of color's experiences with discrimination. However, Asian Americans' experiences of being stereotyped as perpetual foreigners could be highlighted to increase solidarity with other communities of color who are also commonly positioned as foreign (e.g., Latine Americans, MENA Americans; Eidgahy & Pérez, 2022; Zou & Cheryan, 2017). Incorporating both the model minority stereotype and the perpetual foreigner stereotype (and the potential interplay between the two) into our understanding of Asian American stereotype content allows social psychological theory and research to better capture how Asian Americans are perceived, as well as reveal aspects of contemporary race relations that may otherwise go overlooked.…”