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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. In about 20 minutes, we'll help you get ready for the eclipse with Molly Webster from Radiolab, who's got some good science. We'll share stories. Anybody else who's experienced an eclipse with fog or no fog going to be invited to call in and share tips for getting the most out of the experience. We'll do that in about 20 minutes.

Now let's take some time to look at recently announced changes to the census. Last year, the Biden administration proposed an overhaul of the race and ethnicity section on federal forms to more accurately represent Americans. Amongst the changes is the removal of Middle Eastern and North African from the white box. Did you know it was in the white box, creating now a separate MENA or Middle Eastern and North African category?

Although we're not due to fill out another census for another six years, the updates have spurred questions about identity, how people choose to identify when their identity isn't officially recognized by the government, and how that affects the wider group's representation. As we know, Arab Americans will play a significant role in deciding the outcome of the presidential election this year.

In Michigan specifically, we saw over 100,000 voters voice their disapproval of President Biden's handling of the war in Gaza when they voted uncommitted in that important swing state's primary given the election will likely be decided by a few thousand votes in various swing states, Michigan included. This group holds a lot of power in our country right now, yet up until now, they've never been accurately identified in our country's census.

For Arab American Heritage Month, which President Biden declared April to be in 2021, so this is the fourth one, we will be dedicating a few segments to exploring the community's pressing issues in the United States starting today with the question of identity on the census. Joining me now is Karen Zraick, reporter for The New York Times and board member of the Arab and Middle Eastern Journalist Association. Her piece in the Times on the subject is titled No Box to Check: When the Census Doesn't Reflect You. Karen, thanks so much for joining us. Welcome to WNYC.

Karen Zraick: Thank you for having me.

Brian Lehrer: I gave a little summary of the change coming to the census, but can you tell us what exactly we'll see in 2030 when that next forum lands in our mailbox and how this change came about?

Karen Zraick: Sure. Actually, at the end of March, the Biden administration announced that it was going to make some changes to the race and ethnicity check boxes. The big change is that it is not asking for race and ethnicity separately. It's asking a combined question, what is your race and ethnicity? That'll be followed by seven boxes, and for the first time, MENA, Middle East, North African will be among those boxes. That is something that federal agencies have to start implementing now in advance of the 2030 census. It should also be said that 2030 is a long time away, so this could change under a different presidential administration for the census.

Brian Lehrer: Are there other forms that this will apply to, between now and the next census?

Karen Zraick: Yes, there's basically tons of official forms, and basically everybody in different states and companies and organizations around the country follows the federal government's guidelines for the most part on this, so there's lots of groups that are going to have to figure out how to change their forms.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we invite your calls on this. If you are in the group, if you identify as Middle Eastern, North African, or Arab, if you would check the Middle Eastern, North African box on the census, if you had that opportunity, give us a call and tell us how you filled out federal forms like that in the past. How do you best represent who you are with the limited options provided on at least official federal forms?

212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Does it affect you in any way? Does it affect you emotionally? Does it affect you intellectually? Does it affect you practically? Does it affect you economically? Do you think it affects you in any concrete way that you weren't really reflected on the census and these other federal forms in the past? Call us if you identify as Middle Eastern or North African, if you would, check that box on the next census. 212-433-WNYC and tell us what this change means to you and if you like it. 212-433-9692 with Karen Zraick, a reporter for The New York Times and board member of the Arab and Middle Eastern Journalist Association.

Maybe we should get even a little bit more specific about the category, Karen, so MENA, Middle Eastern, or North African, who precisely does that include?

Karen Zraick: That is a great question, and that is a question that is not entirely resolved. Middle East, North Africa, there's no overarching objective definition of where the exact boundaries lie for that category, so that's part of what is going to be adjudicated in the next few years, where exactly the boundaries are, and who's getting counted in that category.

Brian Lehrer: It's so broad when you say Middle Eastern, so one thing that strikes me is if someone is a Israeli-Jew who has Middle Eastern roots, or a Palestinian Muslim, they would check the same box. Think that's right.

Karen Zraick: Correct. Exactly, and Israeli is one of the examples on the Federal government forum.

Brian Lehrer: Here's a listener who's immediately texted to that point. "Are Ashkenazi Jews white or Middle Eastern? How far back do you go? What about those of us that are distinctly pink?" That's a judgment call?

Karen Zraick: That are distinctly pink.

Brian Lehrer: Pink meaning Ashkenazi Jews-- I think the listener is asking Ashkenazi Jews whose ancestors lived in Europe for a long time, and their skin, by pink, they mean they look like a white person in the context of the United States unlike some of the [unintelligible 00:06:58] or More Middle Eastern Jews and more recent generations. If Ashkenazi Jews want to say they go back to Middle East extraction on one level, that's true.

Karen Zraick: Yes. Absolutely. These are all questions that are going to come up over the next few years, and again, Israeli is on the form, so that-- Is the person that you're talking about actually Israeli? I'm not sure, but also I think it's important to point out that a lot-- I worked on a big story about this for The Times, and overwhelmingly what we heard from people who would check this box is that this is an ethnicity, not a race. Entirely akin to the Hispanic-Latino category. The question is not skin color per se.

Brian Lehrer: Things don't always line up so neatly when we try to draw categories around the fullness of human experience.

Karen Zraick: Absolutely.

Brian Lehrer: What if somebody is Moroccan American, but their family has been in the country for six generations, then they would be MENA, yes?

Karen Zraick: Yes. In the same way that if your family was Cuban and has been here for many generations, you would be Hispanic. Is my understanding. You're picking the box that you want to be in, but that's the idea.

Brian Lehrer: I guess they say Middle Eastern rather than Arab, because for example, people from Iran are Middle Eastern, largely Muslim, but they're Persian. They're not Arab. Right?

Karen Zraick: Absolutely. There's many other minority ethnicities like Kurdish, Assyrian, et cetera, within Arab countries, and in non-Arab countries as well.

Brian Lehrer: Why were Middle Eastern and North African Americans counted as white in the first place? Some of the countries we're talking about, especially in North Africa, they could really be Black, but they were counted as white. [chuckles]

Karen Zraick: Basically, this has a very interesting history because In the early 1900s the Arab immigrants who were in the US who were mostly Levantine Christians, fought to be classified as white to circumvent rules that only allowed white immigrants to become citizens, so there were a number of court cases and basically a legal precedent was put in place that ended up lasting for decades and having these, perhaps unintended consequences. The federal government issued guidelines in 1977 that defined people from the Middle East and North Africa as white. Then that never changed in the years after the census until now.

Brian Lehrer: Let's hear from a couple of callers, Marianne in Hackettstown, you're on WNYC. Hi, Marianne.

Marianne: Hi. I have to tell you, I almost cried when I heard that they were finally going to have a different designation because any form I've ever had to fill out, my family is from Iraq, and I would always pick other if that was an option, and then write in Middle Eastern. If there wasn't the box for other and I had to put white, it felt awful. I never felt white. We speak a different language, we eat different foods, we have different names. Marianne isn't even my real name. That's my Starbucks name. [chuckles] I felt so false and so awkward and so uncomfortable. I'm elated. I know it's psychological for me, but that's just not who I am.

Brian Lehrer: Marianne, thank you so much. We may hear a similar story, I should say, from Jacob in Brooklyn. Jacob, you're on WNYC. Hi.

Jacob: Hi, Zraick and Brian. Honestly, I do think it is well overdue, but the thing is, I really have trust issues with the government because I would feel like they would use this data to target Middle Eastern, and people of North African descent. I don't know. I feel like they would use it for nefarious reasons and purposes. Personally, I probably depending on the situation, might or might not. Personally, I use either Asian or sometimes white, depending on the situation.

Brian Lehrer: Jacob, very interesting observation. I wonder, I know you did a survey of people in the MENA category and asked them as a test run for the census, what they would check. Here's a particular fear of Jacob, given the perception of Arabs in this country, that he as somewhat of Yemeni descent, doesn't want to check that box because he's afraid it might be used against them. Did you hear that very much?

Karen Zraick: Yes, we did. It's something that advocacy groups who have been working on this for decades are also very aware of, and I think the counterargument is that it's important for people to be counted in official statistics. For example, if we're trying to tabulate discrimination and hate crimes and stuff like that, there needs to be a category in order for those issues to be accurately tabulated.

Brian Lehrer: Tell us more about that survey. I see that again, you did a survey asking participants several questions about their racial and ethnic identity, creating a test run for the changes to the census. What happened when a MENA box was included?

Karen Zraick: Yes. I worked on a story where we had an admittedly unscientific poll on The Times website that was open for months, and we collected responses from a self-selecting group of people who decide to answer. What we found, seemed to track with what social science researchers have found, which was that, when there was no MENA box, a lot of people who identify as part of a MENA community, were checking another race. It was basically making a lot of data vague and less useful because it's very hard to discern anything if everybody is checking another race.

On our survey, we asked people how they would identify without a MENA box, and with a MENA box. When we added the MENA box, there was a drastic change. Nearly 90% of people who answered, chose either just the MENA box or MENA along with another category, like MENA and white, MENA and Hispanic, MENA and Black, et cetera.

Brian Lehrer: What's the result or the desired result of creating a MENA box, a Middle Eastern or North African box on the census? What significance does this update hold? Or let's say, what practical implications for representation for anything economic? What's the best-case scenario, or what's the good faith hope of the people who are driving this?

Karen Zraick: Right. There is some data on the ancestry of Americans from the ACS, the American Community Survey, which is done more frequently than the census, but that is only the census, which is done every 10 years, only that data dictates how people are classified across official statistical agencies. For example, you need census data to look into the school achievement gap between different groups of students. When we redraw political boundaries, there's often a lot of debate over whether congressional districts fairly represent various minority groups, but people of MENA descent, they're not officially part of the conversation because they don't officially exist in that data.

Brian Lehrer: Listener writes, "Census data is also used by advertisers and marketers to determine 'size of prize in terms of consumer targets,' which also relates to increased inclusion." You agree with that?

Karen Zraick: Yes, sure. That is true. It is the biggest most official pool of data on people in this country, so that tracks.

Brian Lehrer: Virginia in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Virginia.

Virginia: Yes. Hi, Brian, I've talked to you the times before. I'm Armenian. I always felt a little-- I'd never know, really, Caucasian was the only thing that allowed me to feel comfortable because Armenia and Turkey, were in the Caucasus, but my parents were from Turkish Armenia. I used to feel like it really didn't include me either. I'm very happy to hear because I always identify myself as Middle Eastern, although I'm not. I also appear white, so I am white, but I've never felt comfortable without the category Middle Eastern. It's feels good.

Brian Lehrer: You're going to check that one?

Virginia: Absolutely.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much. Yes, I guess, Armenia, if you look at the map, look at the globe, it's on the border of what the government intends for inclusion.

Karen Zraick: I actually was talking to some of the advocates about this point the other day, because there's actually some concern that Armenians are not going to be included or counted in the MENA category. I was talking to the Arab American Institute, actually, just a few days ago about this point, which is one of the big advocacy groups that has pushed for this in Washington. That's been very involved in the conversations with the Census Bureau over the years.

The director of that group, Maya Berry, was telling me that even if the country of Armenia is in Europe, most Armenians in the US come from a Middle Eastern country, the way your family did, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, et cetera, but still identify as Armenian, as their identity. Some Armenian groups and other advocacy groups are pushing for Armenians to be included in the MENA category and officially accounted that way.

Brian Lehrer: Really interesting. People will make their individual decisions since this is voluntary, and we heard from Virginia, what she plans to do. Last question, Karen, your piece included a quote that notes, this change would be the first update to census racial categories since 1970, adding another layer of complexity to an already strenuous form. Is there warranted concern that the new racial category might confuse the average American filling out the census might even dissuade completion of the census, and of course, a full count is so vital to the public interest?

Karen Zraick: Well, yes. I think we're all grappling with the many questions that new categories and rejiggered categories rave. Some experts worry that more checkboxes and more write-in options might confuse people and make the form too complex to generate good data. They did do a lot of testing about these questions, a lot of testing over many years. I would say that there's going to need to be a big public education campaign as well to explain to people what these changes are.

Brian Lehrer: We leave it there for today with Karen Zraick, reporter for The New York Times, and board member of the Arab and Middle Eastern Journalists Association. Her piece in The Times on the subject is called No Box to Check: When the Census Doesn't Reflect You. Now it will, more accurately for people of what they call Middle Eastern and North African descent. Thank you so much for joining us and explaining as much as you did.

Karen Zraick: Thank you.

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