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13 Helen Hatab Samhan Not Quite White: Race Classification and the Arab-American Experience Issues of race and identity are dominant factors in American social history. The dual legacies of slavery and massive immigration-and how they have intersected over timedeeply conditioned the ways in which the citizenry relates to race and how the government intercedes to classify the population. Throughout the more than 100 years that Arabs have immigrated to the United States, there has been the need to clarify, accommodate , and reexamine their relationship to this peculiar American fixation on race. In each historical period, Arabs in America have confronted race-based challenges to their identity. Today, the constituency known as Arab American is situated at interesting social crossroads, where issues of minority and majority affiliation demand more attentionand reflection. This chapter examines race classification policy as it has impacted the Arab-American experience. Rather than approach the question of identity development from within the ethnic boundaries (which continues to be ably and amply studied), this view principally examines the externally imposed systems of classification in the American context : how and why they have developed, how they have changed over time, and how they have related historically to Arab immigrants and ethnics. The first major question to be addressed is what were the social and political motivations of racial classification. How did these change during the past century and take on different roles in identity issues? Reviewing the two principal arenas where classification occurs in the public sector-immigration policy and the U.s. Census-this chapter traces the policies that drove each of these government tools. I also look at the sociopolitical impact of racial categories on society and on the subgroups themselves. Once put in historical perspective, the second issue covered is the direct impact racial classification in this American context had on Arab immigrants. An important feature of this discussion is the recurring theme of "not quite white," which appears to impose itself, albeit in different intensities depending on the era. The ways in which official U.S. policy on race and classification confounded the Arab population is examined in two 210 HELEN HATAB SAMHAN periods that epitomize the country's classification policies in the twentieth century: turn of the century nativism and the civil rights era. An important postscript under consideration is the post-civil rights "millennial period" to cover current trends and attitudes toward race-based policies in particular and multiculturalism in general. This historical survey of u.s. policy serves as a resource for further study of ArabAmerican responses to racial classification and remedies that have emerged to rationalize the somewhat confusing and often awkward fit of relating to race. As Arab ethnic initiatives force a diversity-conscious society to recognize its existence and interact with nongovernmental entities and governmental bodies structured for "official" minority representation, an interesting debate is prompted on how ethnic action can promote and demand inclusion. This overview seeks to inform that debate and to place in perspective the yet unsettled issue of where Arabs fit on the ever-changing prism of race in America. Immigration Policy and Race: The Gatekeeper's Dilemma A cursory review of immigration policy since the mid-nineteenth century reveals that classification by race has dominated official attitudes toward new Americans. With the possible exception of the period immediately after World War II, when cold war political motives were of prime importance, the United States has continually struggled with reconciling its northern European settler identity with new groups whose culture, language , or religion have not conformed to their Anglo-centric concepts of American identity. Although the second half of the nineteenth century was replete with examples of prejudice and intolerance toward immigrants, even within the northern European context (i.e., German and Irish immigrants), official policy in this period was preoccupied with the pace and pattern of immigration from the Far East. Excluding Asians and limiting their rights to citizenship and property dominated the attention of federal statutes from the 1870S through the 1920S. Precipitated by the immigration of large numbers of Chinese that coincided with economic depression, antiChinese attitudes motivated a series of anti-Asian laws. Chinese immigration was made illegal in 1882, and by the first decade of the new century, steps were taken to limit the impact of Japanese immigrants as well.! The significance of these anti-Asian restrictions to the early Arab immigrants are explored in the next section. If late nineteenth century u.s. immigration policy fixated on...

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