Race and Arab Americans Before and After 9/11: From Invisible Citizens to Visible Subjects

Bringing the rich terrain of Arab American histories to bear on conceptualizations of "race" in the U.S., this groudbreaking volume fills a critical gap in the field of ethnic studies. Unlike most immigrant communities who have either been consistently marked as "non-white" or have been marked as "non white" and then, became "white," Arab Americans have historically been rendered "white" and have increasingly come be seen as "non-white." Today, Arab Americans are "officially" classified as white by the U.S. census and "unofficially" represented as different than, and inferior to "whites" within U.S. state policies and U.S. popular culture.
This book highlights emergent conversations on the distinct ways that "race" matters--or does not matter--to the study of Arab American histories. Contributors address questions such as: What is the relationship between U.S. imperialism in Arab homelands and anti-Arab racism in the lives of Arab Americans? What is the relationship between religion, class, gender, and anti-Arab racism? What is the significance of whiteness studies to Arab American Studies? Transcending multiculturalist discourses on race and ethnicity after September 11 that have simply "added on" the category "Arab American" to the landscape of U.S. ethnic and racial studies, this volume locates September 11 as a turning point, rather than a beginning, in the history of Arab American engagements with race, multiculturalism, and Americanization.