Arab-Americans: Current Experiences

The terrorist attack which took place in the United States on September 11, 2001 was responsible for the development of new and negative attitudes toward Arabs and Muslims in the United States. However, Susan M. Akram (2002) stated that the "demonizing of Arabs and Muslims in America began well before the terrible tragedy of September 11, 2001." This was due in part to what Akram (2002) called deliberate myth-making in films and the media, a foreign policy that has long favored Israel over Arab and Muslim states in the Middle East, and the stereotyping of all Arab-Americans or Arab students in the United States as potential threats or "foreigners."

There have been Arabs and Muslims in the United States for many, many years. Majaj (2002) said that it was not until the 1870s that large numbers of Arabs began to migrate to the United States. By World War II there were at least 350,000 people of Arab descent in the United States. The Arab-American community was established in this early wave of immigration. It was expanded by a second wave of immigration beginning after World War II and continuing to the present time.

Arabs are people who come from the Arabic-speaking countries of North Africa and the Middle East. This includes Algeria, Bahrain, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, pre-1948 Palestine and the Palestinian territories, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, the Suda

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o enjoy the political, economic, and cultural advantages that other Americans take for granted. Perhaps more significant is the fact that many Arab-Americans and Muslim-Americans felt that the United States has always had a foreign policy that favors Israel and is against Arab countries as well as Palestinian Arabs. Asali (2002) pointed out that while a very small number of Arabs and Muslims in the United States may have sympathized with Al-Qaeda before September 11, 2001, the vast majority of Arab and Muslim people in this country are as shocked and angry over the terrorist attack as any other group in America. While many Arab-Americans and Muslim-Americans do believe that the United States has shown favoritism toward the Israelis and has been unsupportive of the Palestinians, a new study says that a number of Arab-Americans are hopeful that the Bush administration will be fairer to them than former American administrations. Hanley (2003) reported on a survey that was conducted by the Arab-American Institute and Americans for Peace Now that looked at the relations between the Arab-American and the Jewish-American communities. Both groups (45.4 percent of Jewish-Americans and 65.8 percent of Arab-Americans) believe that th
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Approximate Word count = 4426
Approximate Pages = 18 (250 words per page)

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