Making “MENA”: Histories of the “Middle East,” Race, and the US Census

Abstract: This year, the White House unexpectedly announced major revisions to its race and ethnicity standards – the first in 27 years – most notably including a Middle Eastern or North African (MENA) category. These standards are already being rolled out in federal policy, and have the potential to make a major impact on US society, not least of all higher education. However, these recommendations flew in the face of expert and community stakeholders and historical precedent by excluding transnational, indigenous groups like Armenians, many Arab groups coded as “Black,” and other Muslim groups on the region’s geographic and epistemic peripheries. This talk will therefore examine the “Middle East” as a recurring site of ambiguity and anxiety within foreign policy, academic disciplines, and domestic legislation that congeal around diaspora communities. Taking a deconstructive and intersectional approach to race science, discriminatory US policies, and community voices, the talk will interrogate the historical record while affirming the necessity -- and pitfalls -- of a MENA category.

Bio: Thomas Simsarian Dolan has just begun a position as Lead Historian at the Armenian General Benevolent Union, founded in Cairo in 1906 and still the largest Armenian philanthropy. A faculty affiliate in Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies at Emory and the Center for Arts, Migration, and Entrepreneurship at the University of Florida, his research focuses on MENA migrations across the Atlantic World, and especially the racialization of these migrants in academia, popular culture and the law. His work has been supported by a range of national research organizations, including the Bentley Historical Library and Center for Arab American Philanthropy, and he previously completed a year as a Fulbright US Teaching Scholar History at American University in Cairo, after earning degrees from George Washington University, NYU, and Yale.


Cosponsors:
Department of American Culture
Program in Arab and Muslim American Studies
Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies
Center for Racial Justice
LSA DEI Office
Institute for the Humanities

Register here: https://umich.zoom.us/j/94676302477