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 Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. Arabs therefore come from many different national and religious backgrounds. They represent different ethnic groups and religious sects as well (Majaj, 2002).
In addition to Arab-Americans who either immigrate to the U.S. and obtain citizenship or who are born in this country, the United States is home temporarily to a large number of university students from the regions and countries described above (Shakir, 20...