Join UIC’s Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy and co-sponsor Moraine Valley Community College for an event launching the latest report by IRRPP that captures the conditions and experiences of Arab Americans in the Chicagoland area. The report uses demographic research, surveys, focus group data, as well as expert commentaries by organizers and academics to analyze how systemic inequities and anti-Arab/anti-Muslim racism affect the lives of Arab Americans in employment, education, health care, housing, and policing. The report engages with the diversity of experiences among Arab American communities and their common challenge in navigating being at once hypervisible as a result of commonplace stereotypes as well as invisible due to being classified as white by government agencies and due to the general lack of knowledge about Arab Americans in our society.
This report was created with funding support from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and a UIC Award for Creative Activity and produced in partnership with several Chicagoland Arab American community organizations: UIC’s Arab American Cultural Center, Arab American Action Network, Arab American Family Services, Middle Eastern Immigrant and Refugee Alliance, Sanad Social Services, and the Syrian Community Network. By mapping the challenges facing these communities and making proposals for change, the report will be used as a resource for advocates working to build strong and vibrant Arab American communities.
Click this link to watch the Arab American Launch Event video here.
Nadine Naber, PhD. is a public scholar, author, and teacher from Al-Salt, Jordan and the Bay Area of California. Nadine has been co-creating connections, research, and activism among scholars of color and social movements for the past 25 years. She is author/co-author of five books, an expert author for the United Nations; co-founder of the organization Mamas Activating Movements for Abolition and Solidarity (MAMAS); co-author of the forthcoming book, *Pedagogies of the Radical Mother* (Haymarket Press); and founder of programs such as the Arab and Muslim American Studies Program at the University of Michigan and the Arab American Cultural Center at the University of Illinois.
