middle class in their home country, so they find it easier to enter the middle class in
the United States. They are more likely to be fluent in English. Because there are
relatively few of them, they are unlikely to live in segregated neighborhoods, and much
more likely to marry someone of another racial/ethnic group (Asian American
Cultural Center, 2005; Wong, 1986). Finally, if prejudice often boils down to light
versus dark, they may profit by being relatively light skinned.People from the Middle East
The U.S. Census does not give them a separate category, but about 2 million people
in the United States trace their ancestry to the Middle East or North Africa. About
1,500,000 are recent immigrants who have arrived since 1970. About one-third of
these are Iranian, one-third Turkish, and the other one-third are Arabs, Israelis, Cypri-
ots, and others. There have been two broad migrations of Middle East-
erners to the United States:
■Between 1880 and 1920, refugees came here from the failing Ottoman
Empire, especially Lebanon, Cyprus, Syria, and Armenia. They were
mostly working class and poor, about 75 percent Christian and the rest
Muslim or Jewish. They settled primarily in the industrial Northeast
and Midwest.
■After 1970, many middle-class Israelis, Arabs, and Iranians immigrated
to America. Of there, 73 percent were Muslim. They settled primarily
in large cities, especially Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Houston,
and Washington, D.C.Members of the first wave of immigration were assimilationist;
like most other immigrants of the period, they hid or minimized their
Middle Eastern ancestry and sought to fit in. During the last 50 years,
there has been an increase in efforts to retain separate identity as Muslims.
Like Asian Americans, Middle Eastern Americans tend to be a “model
minority.” They are the most well-educated ethnic group in the United States: Half have
college degrees, as opposed to 30 percent of White non–Middle Easterners. The median
salary of Middle Eastern men is slightly higher than the national mean. However, nearly
20 percent live below the poverty level (U.S. Census Bureau, 2005).
Stereotypes about Middle Easterners tend to be more extreme, and more commonly
believed, than stereotypes about other minority groups. Many Americans unaware of
the political, cultural, and religious differences in the Middle East tend to believe that
all Middle Easterners are Arabs, Muslims, or even Bedouins, who live in tents and ride
camels. The men are stereotyped as wide-eyed terrorists; the women as subservient chat-
tel. Even the hero of Disney’s Aladdin(1993), who was an Arab but evidently not “as
Arab” as everyone else, complains of the barbarity of his country: “They’ll cut off your
nose to spite your face, but hey, it’s home.” The conventional movie villain was once
German, then Russian, then “Euro-terrorist;” now he is a Middle Eastern Arab.
Prejudice and discrimination against Middle Easterners, Arabs, and Muslims have
increased significantly in the last decade, and especially after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
According to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, 38 percent of respondents
would not vote for a well-qualified Muslim for president (a higher percentage than for
any minority except gays) and half believe that half or more of all Muslims are anti-
American (Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, 2003). The FBI documented an
increase of 1,600 percent in hate crimes against Arabs in 2001, jumping from 28 reported
crimes in 2000 to 481 in 2001. The number is second only to anti-Jewish crimes, which
tower atop the list at 1,043 reported crimes (U.S. Department of Justice, 2005). In most
countries of the European Union, intolerance has also increased significantly, first270 CHAPTER 8RACE AND ETHNICITY
The first building in the United States
designed for exclusive use as a mosque was
constructed in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in 1934.
It was sold in 1971, becoming a youth
center and a church, and then abandoned.
In 1990, the Islamic Council of Iowa
acquired and restored the building, and the
“Mother Mosque” is now listed on the
National Register of Historic Places as an
“essential piece of American religious
history.”Didyouknow
?