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 groundbreaking volume fills a critical gap in the field of ethnic studies. Unlike most immigrant communities who either have been consistently marked as
non-white,
or have made a transition from
non-white
to
white,
Arab Americans historically have been rendered
white
and have increasingly come to be seen as
non-white.
This book highlights emergent discourses on the distinct ways that race matters to the study of Arab American histories and asks essential questions. What is the relationship between U.S. imperialism in Arab homelands and anti-Arab racism in the lives of Arab Americans? What are the relationships between religion, class, gender, and anti-Arab racism? What is the significance of whiteness studies to Arab American studies? Transcending multiculturalist discourses 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.