The census is undercounting Philadelphians who come from the Middle East and North Africa | Opinion

My mother grew up in the projects in the Oxford Circle neighborhood of the Lower Northeast. Her white Irish and Jewish neighbors didn’t know what to make of a young Cuban girl in their midst. For my mother, Hispanic and Latino, or the more recent term Latinx, did not yet exist. It wasn’t until the 1970s, under the Nixon administration, that this clumsy not-quite-racial not-quite-ethnic group emerged.

Once, at Little Flower High School, a teacher gave demographic information on the mostly white class, listing one Mexican and one Puerto Rican student. My mother asked why she wasn’t being counted. The teacher had assumed that she was Puerto Rican.

The power of data is to make the invisible visible. The same neighborhoods of the Lower Northeast are now far more diverse than they were in my mother’s time. Northeast High School, one of the largest and most linguistically diverse schools in the district with more than 40 languages spoken, epitomizes this shift.

Available and relatively low-cost housing has attracted immigrants, refugees, and other new arrivals to the Northeast in large numbers. One of the largest populations that have arrived in the last 30 years has come from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Yet we don’t have data in Philadelphia that accurately reflect this shift.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the “Arab Spring” and its impact on North Africa and Syria have nearly doubled these populations in Pennsylvania and nationwide while also adding additional socioeconomic, racial, and cultural diversity to the region.

During the most recent 2020 U.S. Census, Al-Bustan Seeds of Culture, the Philadelphia-based Arab arts and culture nonprofit where I work, and one of the only explicitly MENA-serving organizations working in the city, partnered with Philly Counts, a branch of the Mayor’s Office, to reach out to neighborhoods in our city with populations from the MENA region.

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Despite these efforts — and partially due to the obstacles presented by the pandemic — the official U.S. Census, which did not include a MENA category, massively undercounted residents of our community.

Many likely selected white. This choice has a historical precedent and has been the category for many from the MENA region, who chose it by default. This is based on a push by largely Levantine Arabs (Syrian, Palestinian, Lebanese) in the early and mid-20th century who wanted to be counted as white, in an attempt to acquire all the benefits such a category provided, as well as to work around the exclusionary acts which sought to bar Asian populations from attaining or enjoying full citizenship.

Lumping in Middle Eastern people as white also left no room for Black, brown, and other complex identities represented more significantly by later arrivals from the region, including Sudan, Morocco, and Yemen.

Why does this matter? There are a lot of labels and categories, and identity can feel like an ever-expanding landscape. Reducing our complex experiences to a few boxes on a form feels like an exercise in futility.

Collecting accurate and detailed data is the only way for government offices, health departments, and school districts to make informed decisions about allocations, service contracts, and direct aid.

Our communities have distinctive concerns and face different obstacles than others. Middle Eastern people in Philadelphia often face barriers to language access, and they have to adjust to cultural and religious differences. Many experience traumas resulting from prejudice and discrimination in the United States, and the lingering pain of war and conflict in their home countries. These experiences are not captured when we are lumped in within the categories of white, Black, or Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.

It makes census data less rigorous and meaningful. Why waste our time collecting data we know is inaccurate?

“We can lead our region and country by adopting the MENA category when we collect demographic data.”

During the pandemic, there has been much discussion about the inequity of vaccine distribution. Middle Eastern people in Philadelphia are not even considered. There is infrequent data regarding the “Other” category, which has generally been vaccinated at a lower rate than other groups. Are Arabs and MENA people included in this data set? Are they increasing or decreasing vaccine rates in other categories? The truth is, we don’t know.

If our fellow Philadelphians — and our fellow Americans — understood and recognized people from the Middle East and North Africa as a community with its own needs and concerns, it would go a long way toward a more seamless integration of new arrivals. Recognizing this community in the census would allow city agencies, health-care providers, charitable groups, and others to provide appropriate services where and when they are needed for often vulnerable and isolated communities.

Philadelphia can welcome all into our community and make space for everyone in our neighborhoods through official recognition. We can lead our region and country by adopting the MENA category when we collect demographic data. This could set a precedent for gathering data about our community at the national level, too.

David Heayn-Menendez is an educator, artist, community organizer, and the director of education and civic engagement at Al-Bustan Seeds of Culture.