Being An Arab By Samhan Summary

What makes a person an Arab? One may very quickly answer that an Arab is someone whose first language is Arabic. Another common answer would be that an Arab originates from the Middle East. Therefore, because there is an increasing trend in America to understand who Arabs truly are, Samhan describes the role of Arab Americans in shaping America. Samhan begins by stating that Arabs come from a highly diverse background. As a result, the immigrants that make up the Arab American population come from all the way in Africa stretching to the Arabian Gulf. A stereotypical tendency of American culture is to classify every Arab as a Muslim. This is a result from misleading media portrayals of the Arab population. However, Samhan mentions that the majority of Arab Americans that immigrated to America initially were in fact Christian. Furthermore, Samhan also points out that even though Arab Americans have tried to preserve their Orthodox beliefs, they have eventually assimilated into the American culture as time passes on. Then, Samhan talks about how Arab Muslims who live in America are steadily growing as an integral pillar of the Arab American community. Because there are more and more Arab Muslims immigrating to America, Arab Muslims have established Islamic private schools to help preserve
She states how although Arabs are classified as white along with the European majority, a large number of Arab Americans strongly believe that they are not treated the same way whites are treated. In reality, Arab Americans feel as though they are treated the same way minorities in America such as Asian Americans and Hispanic Americans are treated. Also, Samhan adds that there is no effort to distinguish Arabs separately the same way Hispanic Americans are classified in America. As a reader, I can not help but wonder why the federal government would hold back from classifying the Middle Eastern ethnicity