For many communities, being counted is not just a matter of data. It is a matter of recognition, representation, and resources. Yet for Arab Americans, this recognition has been deferred for decades and obscured under the category of whiteness, which fails to capture who we are. It is worth examining how we celebrate Arab American identity and how our institutions are coming dangerously close to rendering it invisible.

Over the last 16 months under the Trump administration, people of color and marginalized communities across the country have faced both overt and subtle forms of targeting and discrimination at the federal level. One of the less visible examples is how the federal government has handled updates to federal race and ethnicity data standards, particularly as they relate to the upcoming 2030 Census. 

Arab American Identity and the US Census 

In the spring of 2024, the Biden administration’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) announced updates to Statistical Policy Directive No. 15 (SPD 15), instructing federal agencies to submit action plans to modernize race and ethnicity data collection by September 2025. More specifically, these updates require the census to use a combined race and ethnicity question, to add a new “Middle Eastern or North African” reporting category, and to collect detailed race and ethnicity responses. The announcement of this update was a hard-fought victory for census and racial justice advocates, including the League! 

However, as the 2025 deadline for implementation plans approached under the new Trump administration’s OMB, it was first extended to March 2026 and then to March 2027, with a final implementation deadline of September 28, 2029 — just seven months before Census Day, May 1, 2030. 

At first glance, these may seem like routine bureaucratic delays. In reality, this uncertainty can be subversive to people of color and carry profound implications for the Arab American community. These shifting timelines and whether they are met will directly impact whether a Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) category will be implemented in federal data collection tools such as the American Community Survey and the decennial census. 

Without timely implementation, millions of Arab Americans could continue to be excluded from adequate representation and recognition for another ten-year census cycle as a bona fide racial and ethnic group by the federal government. So far, the final implementation deadline has not changed, and all signs point to SPD 15’s implementation. Nevertheless, we and our partners are monitoring this part of the census closely. 

Why Do Census Categories Matter? 

Whether MENA identity is represented in the 2030 Census matters because if the category’s implementation is delayed,  Arab Americans will remain officially categorized as “white” in federal data, as has been the case for many decades. This is a designation that erases the distinct social, political, and lived realities of these communities. According to the Arab American Institute, the Arab American population has grown by nearly 43% between 2010 and 2024, now an estimated 3.7 million people nationwide. This is a significant and growing community that continues to be statistically invisible in the eyes of the federal government. 

An accurate census is foundational to equitable governance and resource distribution. Census data shapes how billions of federal dollars are distributed, how public services are allocated, and how communities are recognized in policy decisions.  

Beyond resources, there is another critical dimension at stake: political power. Following each census, congressional seats are reapportioned, and congressional districts are redrawn in a process called redistricting. State legislatures and many local government districts are also redrawn in this process. Redistricting, which is heavily reliant on census data, is how state and local governments determine how communities are represented at all levels of political life. For Arab American communities, the absence of a distinct MENA category can leave them especially vulnerable to racial discrimination in the redistricting process, with little to no recourse for legal action. 

Consider the case of Rana Abdelhamid, a first-generation Egyptian American from Astoria, New York, home to a vibrant Arab community often called “Little Egypt.” In 2021, Abdelhamid launched a congressional campaign in New York’s 12th district, aiming to represent a constituency that reflected her community. Though her campaign gained a great deal of momentum, the 2022 redistricting cycle fractured Astoria’s Arab population across multiple districts, diluting its collective voting power. Her campaign was ultimately suspended, not for a lack of support, but because the congressional map had been drawn to dilute her community’s political power.  

This kind of fragmentation is not unique. Like many Black and Brown communities, Arab Americans have experienced the effects of district lines that divide and dilute along racial lines. Yet the Arab American community’s ability to challenge such practices is further complicated by their statistical invisibility. Had the voters in Abdelhamid’s district sought to challenge its composition under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act as racially discriminatory, they would first need to demonstrate that, as a voting bloc, Arab American voters could constitute a geographically compact majority district. A great deal of the data used to prove this in court would come from the census. Without specific census data to demonstrate the existence of Arab Americans in a specific locality, the case would be challenging to prove from the outset.  

The long-awaited US Supreme Court decision in Louisiana v. Callais may further shape how voters of color can bring claims of racial vote dilution or racial discrimination in redistricting. While the case was brought by Black voters in Louisiana, a negative decision affecting Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act would impact Arab American voters, who are also protected by Section 2. A decision weakening or striking down Section 2 for redistricting would block the Arab American community’s ability to challenge racial discrimination in voting using the most effective tool we have. This would impact the community’s ability to use the courts to protect political power from legislative racism. 

How to Promote a Representative Census 

While we wait for SPD 15 to be implemented in a timely manner to ensure MENA Americans are fairly counted, there are other ways to stay engaged in census advocacy. Individuals and Leagues can urge their state and local governments to participate in the upcoming Local Update of Census Addresses (LUCA), a cooperative process between state, tribal, local, and the federal government that is critical to ensuring that all people are accurately counted in the census by reviewing and correcting confidential address lists before enumeration begins. Organizations like the National League of Cities are excellent grassroots nonpartisan partners who are dedicated to census work, and currently, to LUCA.  

As Arab American Heritage Month invites celebration, it should also be a time of reflection. Recognition of an ethnic group should not merely be cultural, but it should also be structural and institutional. It impacts the data we collect, the policies we implement, the resources we distribute, and the districts we draw. When communities, like Arab Americans, are not counted, they are more easily excluded from public life. In any healthy democracy, visibility is power, and a community being properly counted is its first step towards claiming its power.