A Different Kind of Brown: Arabs and Middle Easterners as Anti-American Muslims

Abstract

The growth of nonwhite/nonblack ethnoracial minority groups, especially Latina/os, Asians, and Arab/Middle Easterners, is redefining the United States racial landscape. These groups, which defy straightforward racial classification and occupy different positions in the racial order, challenge narrow conceptualizations of race based on skin color and phenotype. Interviews with 53 Egyptian and Egyptian Americans reveal the existence of a brown racialization that simultaneously homogenizes, yet differentiates, brown-skinned ethnoracial groups. Their narratives indicate a brown ethnoracial category differentiated by ethnic, national origin, and religious differences. In problematizing the homogenization of this broad brown ethnoracial category, Egyptians emphasize the racialization of Islam as a key differentiating factor distinguishing them as a particular kind of brown. This research demonstrates racialization as a layered process in which race, ethnicity, national origin, and religion combine in unique ways in defining Arabs and Middle Easterners not only as brown and foreign but also more specifically as anti-American Muslim terrorists.

Keywords

Arab American Middle Eastern Muslim race ethnicity foreign brown terrorist

The steady growth and visibility of nonwhite/nonblack ethnoracial minority groups, especially Latina/os, Asians, and Arab/Middle Easterners, is redefining the racial landscape of the United States. Although we know that these “intermediate groups” (Bonilla-Silva 2015) defy straightforward racial classification, occupy different locations in the racial order, and are racialized through ethnicity, national origin, and/or religion, rather than strictly phenotype, we know less about how these groups experience racialization differently. In this research I examine how Egyptians articulate a sense of brown racialization that simultaneously homogenizes Latina/os, Asians (especially South Asians), and Arab/Middle Easterners as foreign and threatening yet distinguishes Arabs/Middle Easterners as anti-American terrorists on the basis of religion.

Although Arabs and Middle Easterners have not always been systematically included in mainstream scholarship on race, they represent an important case for examining the dynamic nature of race, the importance of religion to racialization, and the ongoing fluctuations in the U.S. racial order (Cainkar 2009; Jamal 2008b; Naber 2008a). Officially classified as white but racialized as nonwhite, Arabs and Middle Easterners are in the unenviable position of being among the most “invisible of invisibles” (Gualtieri 2008:149), existing in racially ambiguous space as neither fully white nor recognized as people of color (Cainkar 2009; Naber 2008a; Tehranian 2009). Despite relative invisibility in mainstream race scholarship, the literature on Arab and Middle Eastern racialization is extensive and generally finds that these groups are racialized as nonwhite; are targets of racial, ethnic, and religious prejudice; and are victims of interpersonal and institutional racial discrimination (Bakalian and Bozorgmehr 2009; Cainkar 2009; Garner and Selod 2015; Meer and Modood 2009; Rana 2011; Selod and Embrick 2013).

The racial formation of Arabs, Middle Easterners, and increasingly Muslims illustrates a complex interplay of race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, and U.S. foreign policy that differs in historical timing and context from other racialized groups (Cainkar 2006, 2008). Resting on a foundation of Orientalism that defines Arabs and Middle Easterners as foreign and threatening and bolstered by increasing Islamophobia that defines Muslims as anti-American terrorists, these groups are increasingly vilified in the U.S. media (Alsultany 2012; Shaheen 2008), targeted by anti-terrorism policies (Bayoumi 2006; Cainkar 2002), and racially profiled in schools, streets, and airports (Cainkar 2009; Santoro and Azab 2015). Their racialization is highlighted by the recent executive order signed by President Trump banning immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries, seemingly justified through the discourse of national security. Although not explicitly a “Muslim ban,” the language used evokes terrorism, honor killings, and “those who would oppress Americans” (The White House, Office of the Press Secretary 2017). This rhetoric, without explicitly naming it, pathologizes Arab culture and Islam, further stoking fear of radical Islamic terrorism that extends beyond those seven countries to broadly include all Arabs, Middle Easterners, and/or Muslims, such as Egyptians, who form the basis for this study.

Interviews with 53 Egyptian and Egyptian Americans reveal complex racial narratives underscoring a racialization as brown, foreign, and threatening. The following sections outline the theoretical framework of brown racialization and analyze how Egyptians describe and give meaning to their racialization as brown. Their racial narratives demonstrate racialization to be a layered process in which skin color operates as a first level of racialization homogenizing brown-skinned ethnoracial groups. Additionally, brown skin in combination with ethnic or national origin differences result in a similar form of racialization among these groups that come to define them as neither citizens nor Americans. However, while shared skin color may result in a broad brown ethnoracial category that is viewed as neither white nor black as well as foreign, religion further distinguishes Egyptians from these other groups, especially Latina/os and Asians. Egyptians articulate how race, ethnicity, national origin, and especially religion, combine to demarcate Egyptians as a particular kind of brown: anti-American Muslim terrorists.

Brown Racialization: Layering Race, Ethnicity, National Origin, and Religion

It is well established that race is not biological but rather a social construction that evolves over time through racial formations that are relational and layered processes through which “racial categories are created, inhabited, transformed and destroyed” (Omi and Winant 1994:56). Although traditionally defined in terms of skin color and phenotype, scholars recognize that ethnicity, national origin, and/or religion are increasingly racialized (Alcoff 2009; Balibar 1991; Kibria 2002; Joshi 2006; Meer and Modood 2009; Naber 2008b; Rana 2011; Selod and Embrick 2013). This scholarship demonstrates that the “social construction of race involves ethnic and global dimensions such as national origin, culture, language, religion, [and] the historical relationship between colonial powers and their political subjects” (Aranda and Rebollo-Gil 2004:913). For example, Alcoff’s (2009) ethnoracial model combines racial and ethnic characteristics under four axes of racialization: skin color, phenotype, ancestry, and nativism. While stressing skin color and phenotype, the inclusion of ancestry and nativism provides an axis of racialization that differentiates citizens from noncitizens and/or Americans from non-Americans. Following Alcoff’s (2009) model, I include religion as a separate axis of racialization that further distinguishes alien from enemy by viewing religious difference as natural and immutable as skin color.

To be brown is to be defined in racial terms. Brown parallels the color-based language most often associated with race and represents the racial “other” defined as foreign, illegal, and/or un-American (Bloodsworth-Lugo and Lugo-Lugo 2008; Kibria 2002; Mudambi 2015; Selod 2015) and as deviant, dangerous, and/or threatening (Chavez 2008; Rivera 2014; Semati 2010). Brown racialization is a flexible process that “spans across Latino/as, South Asians, [and] Muslim/Middle Eastern/Arabs” (Mudambi 2015:47). Brown bodies are often racialized through the combination of race-based features such as skin color and phenotype with ethnic and/or religious cues such as name, language, national origin, and religious appearance (Silva 2010). Thus, brownness is “not tied to a specific racial or ethnic group” (Patel 2012:218) but rather incorporates broad discourses of “illegal immigrant” (Chavez 2008; Mudambi 2015; Rivera 2014), “forever foreigner” (Kibria 2002; Tuan 1998), and Muslim “terrorist” (Chon and Arzt 2005) under a “cultural politics of brown” (Semati 2010:257) that simultaneously homogenizes, yet differentiates, brown-skinned ethnoracial groups. Thus, brown represents neither a singular nor uniform racial formation but rather a series of racial formations that combine race, ethnicity, national origin, and religion. In what follows, I examine elements of brown racial formation for Latina/os, Asians, and Arab/Middle Easterners.

Although the social boundaries of whiteness have expanded over time, nonwhite/nonblack ethnoracial groups have not achieved whiteness in the same way as white-skinned European ethnic groups such as Irish, Italians, and some Jews. Although some scholars suggest that these middle groups are “honorary whites” (Bonilla-Silva 2004), others argue that the intractability of race bars them from ever achieving whiteness (Cainkar 2009; Kibria 2002; Rana 2011; Rivera 2014; Tuan 1998). Whiteness, as more than an official racial designation, includes access to privileges and opportunities that seldom apply to these groups. Latina/o, Asian, and Arab and Middle Eastern racial formations are not tied to a single axis (i.e. skin color/phenotype) but include ethnicity, national origin, and religion. As a form of brown racial formation, each of these groups “straddle the worlds of non-citizens, aliens, alien citizens, and forever foreigners” (Mudambi 2015: 49).

Latina/os have been racialized as “illegal immigrants” unwilling to assimilate into the dominant white American culture. Latina/o racial formation begins with the annexation of Mexican territory in 1848 and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which granted Mexicans eligibility for naturalized citizenship, which at the time was available only to whites (Dowling 2014; Haney-Lopez 2006). Despite being “white by law,” Mexicans were neither seen as white nor treated as white in their everyday lives (Haney-Lopez 2006). Carbado (2005) described their racial status as one of “inclusive exclusion” in which American citizenship was legally obtainable, yet they were summarily excluded from American cultural identity. Indeed, the “Latino Threat Narrative is a part of a grand tradition of alarmist discourse about immigrants and their perceived negative impacts on society” (Chavez 2008:3). Chavez (2008) argued that defining Latina/os as illegal distinguishes them from other major nonwhite immigrant groups, such as Asians and Africans. As an example of brown racial formation, Latina/os are racialized as “citizen but not American” (Flores-Gonzalez forthcoming) and subjected to near constant threat of deportation based primarily on national origin and ethnicity (Mudambi 2015; Rivera 2014).

Asian Americans have been racialized as both “forever foreigners” (Tuan 1998) and “model minorities” (Lee 2006). Although South Asians, more so than East Asians, fit the brown-skin mold, the history of East Asian racial formation is connected to the discourse of threat and “foreigner racialization” (Ancheta 2006). Emerging in the late nineteenth century, the “yellow peril” discourse depicted Asians as economic, cultural, and physical threats to the United States (Lee 2006). In response to increasing immigration, the United States enacted a series of restrictive immigration policies Lee (1993) described as “American gatekeeping.” Together, the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, 1917 Asiatic Barred Zone Act, and 1924 Asian Exclusion Act, which effectively barred Asian immigration to the United States, alongside the naturalization cases of Takao Ozawa v. United States (1922) and United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind (1932) effectively racialized Asians as aliens ineligible for citizenship on the basis of race. Although Asian Americans have more recently been stereotyped as “model minorities,” this ignores the historical constructions of Asians as foreign and the persistent racial discrimination facing Asian Americans today. As an example of brown racial formation, Asian Americans are viewed as unassimilable foreigners whose allegiance to the United States is questioned because of their ethnic culture and/or national origin.

Orientalism and Islamophobia have operated conjointly in the construction of Arabs and Middle Easterners as anti-American Muslim terrorists (Rana 2011; Selod 2015). Orientalism defines these groups as inimical to Western Christianity through romanticized tropes of an uncivilized, exotic, and barbaric culture and religion. Orientalism thus encapsulates the essentialization of culture and religion as the division between a white, Christian Occident is juxtaposed against an Arab, Muslim Orient. However, the history of Arab/Middle Eastern racial formation differences in historical timing and context from that of other racialized groups (Cainkar 2009). Christians from the greater Syria/Mount Lebanon region dominated the earliest period of Arab immigration (Cainkar 2009; Orfalea 2006). Aided by a series of racial prerequisite cases, especially Dow v. United States (1915), these early migrants tended to follow the white ethnic experience and accessed some privileges of whiteness as evidenced by their ability to gain naturalized citizenship that some scholars suggest was aided by their adherence to Christianity (Gualtieri 2009). Although the 1917 and 1924 immigration laws did not include some parts of the Middle East (Cainkar 2009), the period between 1924 and 1965 marked a period of limited immigration for these groups. During this period of low immigration, a second generation of Arab and Middle Eastern Americans came of age accessing some privileges of whiteness (Abdelhady 2014; Cainkar 2009). However, after 1965, a majority of Arab and Middle Eastern immigrants were Muslims from Egypt, Iraq, Yemen, Syria, Jordan, and the Persian Gulf (Orfalea 2006). This change from predominantly Christian to predominantly Muslim immigration coincided with domestic and international events that began to racialize Arab and Middle Eastern Americans as threatening.

Cainkar (2006) argued that the racial formation of Arab Americans is linked to the “emergence of the United States as a global superpower” (p. 249), while Naber (2008a) pointed to “an interplay between U.S. military, political, and economic expansion in the Middle East” (p. 31). In particular, the 1967 Arab-Israeli War marks a pivotal point when the U.S. backing of Israel was accompanied by the vilification of Arabs, giving rise to images of Arabs as violent and misogynist Muslims (Cainkar 2016). The wholly one-sided support of Israel by the United States and the negative media coverage transferred concerns from Arabs in the Middle East to Arab Americans. As the enemy over there became the potential enemy here, Arab, Middle Eastern, and Muslim Americans were viewed as threats to the safety and security of the United States, as evidenced by changing representations of Arabs in the media shifted from “lazy sheiks reclining on thrones to . . . dangerous terrorists who threaten national security” (Alsultany 2012:8).

The United States has been worried about Islam since at least the 1970s (Naber 2005). Foreign events such as the 1979 Iranian Revolution, the 1985 Iran-Contra affair, and the 1990s Persian Gulf wars combined with domestic terrorism, including the hijacking of TWA flight 1985, the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, and the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center to redefine Arab, Middle Eastern, and Muslim Americans as anti-American terrorists (Cainkar 2009; Rana 2011; Salaita 2006; Tehranian 2009). Despite this long history of viewing these groups as threatening, 9/11 represents a crucial turning point in the racialization of Arabs, Middle Easterners, and Muslims. Alsultany (2007) put it this way:

After 9/11, however, there emerged an ideological moment that, supported by a range of individual and institutional discourses and practices, defined U.S. citizens as diverse and united in the “War on Terror,” over and against Arabs and Muslims, who were represented as un-American, terrorist, enemies. (p. 595)

Arab and Middle Eastern Americans are racialized as anti-American whose allegiance to the United States is not possible because of religion. This is evidenced by the justifications used in President Trump’s executive order banning immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries. His order states, “In order to protect Americans, the United States must ensure that those admitted to the country do not bear hostile attitudes toward it and its founding principles” (The White House, Office of the Press Secretary 2017). As a particular kind of brown, Arabs, Middle Easterners, and now Muslims represent the preeminent threat to the national security of the United States.

In the following sections, I analyze how Egyptians articulate their understanding of brown racialization as both a homogenizing and differentiating process. Their racial narratives highlight how visual and interactional cues, such as skin color, phenotype, national origin, name, and religious appearance, contribute to their racialization as brown, foreign, anti-American, and terrorist. Throughout, it is clear that Egyptians see Arabs, Middle Easterners, and Muslims as a particular kind of brown.

Methods

Data derive from 53 in-depth interviews with Egyptians and Egyptian Americans identified through local community and religious organizations using snowball sampling. I recruited respondents while attending community, cultural, and religious events in which I was invited to participate. Interviews occurred between September 2012 and September 2014, were conducted in English at mutually agreeable locations (including coffee shops, libraries, and participants’ homes), ranged from 30 minutes to 3 hours (with an average of 1.5 hours), and focused on narratives of race, religion, ethnicity, and community. Interviews were digitally recorded and transcribed using pseudonyms to protect participants’ identity. Analysis of the racial narratives revealed a sense of racialization based on skin color, phenotype, ethnic culture, language, national origin, and especially religion.

I chose to focus on Egyptians for several reasons. First, most research on Arab/Middle Eastern American communities either takes a broad focus, incorporating various ethnonational groups, or narrowly focuses on Lebanese, Syrian, and/or Palestinian communities. Less is known about the experiences of Egyptians in the United States. Second, Egyptians are the second largest single-origin Arab/Middle Eastern group in the United States, after Lebanese (Asi and Beaulieu 2013). Third, by focusing on a single nationality, I could examine how race is experienced across religious lines without conflating that with national origin. Finally, Egyptians, even among other Arab and Middle Eastern groups, tend to be highly educated professionals whose experiences with race could conceivably be buffered by class (Asi and Beaulieu 2013; Brittingham and de la Cruz 2005).

Participants

Those who participated in interviews include 30 Muslims, 20 Coptic Orthodox Christians, 1 Protestant Christian, and 2 atheists; 28 men and 25 women; 18 1st generation, 5 1.5th generation, 18 2nd generation; and 12 in the United States on work or student visas (Table 1). My sample is highly educated, with more than 80 percent having earned a master’s degree or higher, and the majority are employed in professional occupations, including dentists, doctors, university professors, and engineers.

Table 1.

Gender	Religion	Generation	Ethnicity
Male = 28	Muslim = 30	1st = 18	Arab = 30
Female = 25	Coptic Christian = 20	1.5th = 5	Non-Arab = 23
	Protestant = 1	2nd = 18
	Atheist = 2	Visa = 12

Data Analysis

Data analysis of interview transcripts included systematic elements of open coding, focused coding, and selective coding as prescribed by Emerson, Fretz and Shaw (1995), Rubin and Rubin (2005), and Lofland (2006). Coding data was an ongoing process and was used to inform subsequent data collection as well as the first round of open coding. Initial coding resulted in procedural, analytical, and theoretical memos in which I identified primary themes used to guide focused coding. For example, the concept of “brown” as a particular kind of racialization and racial category emerged early in the interview process, and subsequent interviews intentionally asked about this theme if the interviewees did not spontaneously mention it.

An initial round of coding yielded 17 major codes around race, racial identity, and racialization experiences. Among this first round of coding, I found that Egyptians describe others as racializing them as brown, foreign, immigrants, un-American, anti-American, Muslim, and terrorists. A second round of coding focused on identifying how Egyptians articulate their racialization through skin color, phenotype, national origin, name, religious appearance, and language. A final round of coding analyzed how brown racialization resulted in experiences of racial discrimination and racial profiling. Overall, the analysis of their racial narratives revealed that religion, and to some extent national origin, resulted in their racialization as anti-American through an association of Islam with terrorism.

Brown, Foreign, and Anti-American Muslim Terrorists

At its core, race is a concept that “signifies social conflicts and interests by referring to different types of human bodies” (Omi and Winant 1994:55). As an embodied feature, race is something people carry with them, display or hide, and which others perceive. However, race is not simply about skin color but rather includes other characteristics, such as ancestry, name, language, accent, and religious dress. In what follows, I illustrate how Egyptians articulate racialization as a process that layers skin color, ethnicity, national origin, and religion in complex ways. Egyptians describe a first level of racialization based primarily on skin color and phenotype that defines them, as well as Latina/os and South Asians, as neither white nor black but brown. Once racialized as brown, Egyptians articulate a second layer of racialization based on ethnic and national origin differences that defines them as foreign. Last, their narratives highlight the importance of religion as defining them as a particular kind of brown: anti-American Muslim terrorists.

Brown Racialization

Although Arab, Middle Eastern, and Muslim racialization “does not rely on phenotype alone” (Jamal 2008b:318), Egyptians emphasize skin color, and other phenotypic characteristics, in the construction of a broad brown ethnoracial other. Sabrina says, “I think maybe sometimes there is a large brown racial category in the United States which is that in-between.” Inez says, “There are brown people in the world. I’m Egyptian. I say brown because it’s like the other. It’s the not black and the not white.” As neither white nor black, brown serves as a color-based language Egyptians use to situate themselves within hegemonic conceptualizations of race as skin color.

Many Egyptians evoked definitions of race that combined skin color and/or ancestry in complex ways. For example, Matthew says, “When I think of race . . . it marks, I don’t know your skin color.” Yet later in the interview, Matthew rationalizes racially identifying as white, saying, “When I think of race, like your descent . . . I feel that our descent is white.” Like Matthew, many Egyptians use a combination of skin color and ancestry in conceptualizing race. Yet not all came to the same conclusion that they are white. In fact, most do not see themselves as white but use other terms, such as Caucasian, Arab, Middle Eastern, or brown, to describe their race. Some even use the term Caucasian to distinguish themselves from white. Michael says,

I always think that white is Caucasian a little bit. I don’t know, it’s a bit darker than white, at least in my definition. I might be wrong [but] Caucasian is more similar to my [skin] color other than white.

This idea that Egyptians might be Caucasian, but not white, is similarly echoed by Matra, who recalls his father telling him that Middle Easterners are Caucasian, but not white, because “colorwise we’re not white.” Additionally, other Egyptians, like Saamir, conceptualize race in terms of skin color and culture, rather than biology, saying,

I understand what they mean by white is Western white. . . . I am not European background and I am not American, but my color is white. . . . So I am not saying I am not white like my color is not white. I am white, but I am not Western white.

The notion that Egyptians are not white, even if they are lighter skinned, is highlighted by Kaarim’s experience with coworkers. Like Matthew above, Kaarim self-identifies as white, yet through various interactions has found that others do not see him as white.

So, I actually do see myself as white. . . . I had this discussion with a few of my colleagues and then I was like “so what do you think I am?” . . . They were like, “Middle Eastern.” Well why not white? Then they were like, “look at the skin color you are not white, you are like kind of bronze color.” So I see myself [as] white, among Egyptians at least I am in the lighter color, so I thought that I’m white you know. A little bit darker than a typical American but I felt I am white, but then it looks like they see me as bronze rather than white.

Despite his relatively light skin color, Kaarim, like Saamir, is not perceived to be white in part because of his Egyptian heritage locates him outside the traditional boundaries of whiteness.

Although some Egyptians see themselves as white in part because they have lighter skin tones than other Egyptians, most describe their skin color as brown, tan, or in between. Mahmoud describes his skin color as abyad (the color of wheat), while Sarah says Egyptians have “dark skin color, [but] not dark dark skin.” Molly, who describes her own skin color as brown, refers to Hispanics as sharing similar skin color, saying,

I am not white and not dark, that’s why I kinda say brown. You could say there are some Latinos or Hispanics that have that same. . . . skin color. When I say brown, it’s a skin color thing. There’s other people that have not a white skin or dark black skin, I guess they are brown.

Many other Egyptians recognize that having brown, rather than white, skin tone means they share a phenotypic characteristic with Latinos/Hispanics and South Asians. Although most Egyptians are identified as either Arab or Middle Eastern, having brown skin means they are sometimes mistaken for other ethnoracial groups. Jacob explains,

I think the average American person, like when they look at you, I guess there’s sort of this whole brown category. I get mistaken for Hispanic, I get mistaken for Indian, these are the people who are neither black nor white. … It’s just what people recognize. It’s a visual thing more than anything else.

I found that Egyptians, especially men with light to medium skin tone, are often mistaken for Latina/o or Hispanic. John says that “8 out of 10 times [people] thought maybe I was Mexican or Spanish or something.” Matthew who often makes people guess where he is from, says, “They would always think I’m Puerto Rican, or some Hispanic descent, or something.” Even Egyptian women, especially those who are Christian, recall experiences where people speak to them in Spanish. Lizabeth remembers an interaction with an elderly woman at a grocery store in which she was accused of not knowing her “mother tongue” because she could not speak or understand Spanish.

Unlike Egyptian men, Egyptian Muslim women who are not immediately identified as Arab or Middle Eastern are often mistaken for South Asian, especially if they are wearing hijab. Samantha, who wears hijab, says, “Because of my skin tone, I’ve gotten Indian, Pakistani before. I usually get Pakistani or Indian for some reason.” Maya, who has both worn and not worn hijab, reveals this, saying,

Before I covered my hair, I was always mistaken for Greek, Italian, Mexican, Puerto Rican. After I started covering my hair, I was always mistaken for Indian. I mean, of course people who are Arab, were a little bit better, but . . . Americans, they’ll always think I’m Indian.

Their narratives demonstrate the powerful role that religion plays in differentiating brown-skinned ethnoracial groups. Egyptian Muslim women whose outward appearance marks them as Muslim are much more likely than Egyptian men to be mistaken for South Asian because of the assumption that Arabs/Middle Easterners and South Asians are Muslim (see Joshi 2006).

Despite recognizing the existence of a broader brown ethnoracial category, many Egyptians challenge the homogenization of these groups. Unlike O’Brien (2008), who found Latina/os and Asians often identified with other members of the racial middle, few Egyptians identified with Latina/os or South Asians, often differentiating themselves on the basis of cultural, ancestral, and religious grounds. Many Egyptians viewed their racialization as unique resulting in a particular kind of brown defined by pervasive perceptions of Islam as radical, violent, and associated with terrorism. For example, Inez explains,

I think there’s a brown look, but there’s also a Middle Eastern look. . . . I think that when they think of a Middle Eastern person they think of a man with a beard, someone who looks like bin Laden. I think they think Middle Eastern people have big eyes, almond eyes, dark hair, so there’s definitely a look that people think.

Inez emphasizes that Egyptians, as Middle Eastern, are not simply brown, but are distinguishable by different phenotypical features. Yet by invoking Osama bin Laden, the terrorist most associated with 9/11, she highlights how “certain phenotypical features associated with a group and attached to a race in popular discourse become associated with a particular religion or religions” (Joshi 2006:11).

Similarly, other Egyptians question the utility of the brown ethnoracial category by evoking differences in ethnonational background. Jacob suggests,

Brown [is] not a good category ’cause it’s like totally different groups. Hispanics, Indians, and Egyptians, you’re talking about across the globe different cultures. They just happen to share a shade of color that’s similar enough. . . . So I don’t think the brown category makes much sense.

Although Inez and Jacob’s comments challenge the homogenization of brown-skinned ethnoracial groups as a singular category, the narratives above attest to its superficial existence. Their comments indicate racialization is a process, rather than a product, in which race, ethnicity, national origin, and religion interact in intricate ways. This layering of race, ethnicity, national origin, and religion suggests that brown represents not a singular but rather a multifaceted racial formation in which different kinds of brown ethnoracial groups exist. The following section examines how Egyptians articulate a brown racialization that defines them as neither citizen nor American.

Foreign Racialization

Egyptians recognize that they are often viewed as foreigners in the United States. For many, the combination of brown skin and ethnic signifiers such as national origin or language marks them as neither citizen, nor American regardless of their citizenship status or nation of birth. Maya, a second-generation Muslim, says, “We’re not white, we’re not black, we’re brown people. I think we are a different other that’s kind of an immigrant other. Whereas white and black is usually something [American], brown refers to other and from somewhere else.” Maya’s comment reflects a form of “foreigner racialization” (Ancheta 2006) that conflates race with nationality and citizenship. Their narratives below reveal how brown-skinned ethnoracial groups often face nativism and xenophobia driven by twin logics of “cultural racism” and “nation-based racism” that defines Latina/os, Asians, and Arab/Middle Easterners as both foreign and non-American (Naber 2008b).

Because they do not fit the “typical white American” mold, Egyptians consistently face questions about where they are from. Echoing Maya’s statement above, Megan says, “I think because of the color of our skin . . . people will automatically assume you’re not your typical white American.” Because brown-skin tone cues nativism and xenophobia, questions like “what are you” and “where are you from” often represent attempts to validate those concerns. For example, Lizabeth, who was born in the United States, says,

I’m not your typical white-skinned person. I just think . . . that’s why I think when people meet me, the first question they ask is, “Where are you from?” I think a lot of times when you meet your typical white-skinned person, you don’t necessarily jump to the where-are-you-from-question because they don’t look like they’re necessarily from anywhere, you know? For me, because I’m darker, I think the automatic assumption is that I come from somewhere else.

Beyond skin color and phenotype, ethnonational ancestry, as indicated by national origin and/or linguistic cues, provides an additional layer of racialization confronting Egyptians. For some Egyptians, like Matta, this means hiding their Egyptian background in an attempt to avoid being seen as foreign:

Matta:

I just feel like sometimes I just don’t want to open up a conversation of “Oh, you’re Egyptian.” I think it just kind of highlights maybe something subconsciously, “Ok, I am letting them know that I’m different.” I think that maybe that’s why I don’t say it. I don’t know.

Interviewer:

When they find out, what do . . .

Matta:

I mean, they assume I’m an immigrant.

Although Matta avoids mentioning his Egyptian ancestry, others take a more proactive approach when trying to dispel notions that they are foreigners. Samantha often leads with her identification as American, rather than Egyptian, to emphasize her American identity. When asked where she is from, she says,

I usually say my family is from Egypt, because I don’t want people to misunderstand and think that I was born and raised [in Egypt] and I don’t know anything but Egypt. I want, first and foremost, [people to know] I am American.

Beyond divulging that they are from Egypt, some Egyptians mention that others may use linguistic cues to racialize them as foreign. Kaarim says, “I mean from the moment I speak my accent just pops out, ‘Where are you from?’ Well, I’m from Egypt.” Similarly, Abdul says,

If I am with someone and we speak in Arabic . . . if I am with an Egyptian on the bus I’m not going to speak in English, so I’ll speak in Arabic. So sometimes some people ask like “what language is this?” I don’t know if they ask because they are curious like they are worried you know what I mean. Cause like when you speak Arabic people can recognize it from the movies [with] terrorists. Like people avoid you because you are dark, or because you are Arab, or because you are Muslim. You know people still have this kind of racism.

Because non-English languages and non-American accents lead others to assume they are foreign, Egyptians often have to account for where they are from. Abdul’s comment, like Inez’s comment earlier, demonstrates what Bloodsworth-Lugo and Lugo-Lugo (2008) described as the “browning of terror.” By invoking an association between Arabic language, religion, and race, Abdul’s comments articulate a particular kind of brown racialization faced by many Egyptians. The following section examines how Egyptians, along with other Arabs and Middle Easterners, are racialized as anti-American Muslim terrorists.

Anti-American Muslim Racialization

Many Egyptians reveal that their allegiance to America is not simply questioned, but often summarily rejected by others who assume that because they are Muslim they cannot also be American. Ismaael is a citizen and has lived in the United States for more than 20 years:

Ismaael:

I know a lot of people don’t view me as American and you know that’s frustrating at times, but I accept it but I definitely view myself as American . . . .

Interviewer:

Why don’t others see you as American? . . .

Ismaael:

Like I said, it goes back to that definition of being normal and being white and I don’t fit that category so I am automatically not a real American.

Although both Latina/os and Asians also have their Americanness challenged, Ismaael distinguishes Arabs and Middle Easterners from these groups, saying, “Having brown skin and being from the Middle East is different.” Similarly, Maya believes her Americanness is questioned because of her ethnic and religious background. Maya, who was born and raised in the United States, says, “Your Americanness might be different than [mine]. I am also American, born here. It’s just that no one has a problem with [yours] because you don’t have a contentious section part. Obviously now for Muslims and Arabs we do.” What is questionable about both Ismaael’s and Maya’s Americanness is their Arab or Middle Eastern ancestry. Maya’s comment also highlights her Muslim identity as well. Their comments reflect what Selod (2015) described as “de-Americanization,” a process by which one’s loyalty to the United States is revoked primarily because of negative associations between Arab culture and Islam. Whereas Latina/os are viewed as illegal immigrants, and Asians as foreigners, Arabs and Muslims are increasingly seen as anti-American in ways that challenge the legitimacy of their presence in the United States. No longer simply brown, Egyptians become what Jacob calls “brown Arab” as the conflation of race, ethnicity, and national origin with religion further distinguishes them from other brown-skinned ethnoracial groups.

The racialization of Islam as violent, radical, and connected to terrorism is driven by a rhetoric of fear. Sabrina, a second-generation Muslim, eloquently describes this, saying,

I think a lot of it is very, very deep rooted in political history and a lot of people in the United States just understand that all those Muslims, Middle Easterners, they hate American. . . . I think it is rooted in fear. I don’t really blame anyone with fear . . . people are a product of their surrounding and where they are from. If that’s all you see and hear and the only time you ever really interact with somebody who is Muslim or you see something about Muslims [is] on TV when they are . . . blowing up buildings somewhere. If I were born here and I didn’t know anything about Muslims I would probably be afraid of them too.

Such fear of Arabs and Muslims is not new. Polls have consistently shown that Americans hold prejudicial attitudes toward Arabs and Muslims, seeing them as untrustworthy, violent, and threatening (Cainkar 2016; Panagopoulous 2006). Immediately after 9/11, public opinion polls showed “widespread support for special treatment of Arabs” and “a majority of Americans favored profiling Arabs” (Cainkar 2002:23). Oswald (2005) found that “perceptions of threat” alone are often enough to activate “anti-Arab reactions” (p. 1792), and Jamal (2008a) found that Americans increasingly supported policies that infringed upon the civil liberties of Arab, Middle Eastern, and Muslim communities.

The idea that Arabs, Middle Easterners, and Muslims represent a potential threat is echoed throughout Egyptian narratives. Ismaael recalls that after 9/11, there was “a period everyone was a suspect unless you were proven otherwise.” Similarly, Fareed recalls the emergence of an atmosphere of anxiety after 9/11. He says,

I felt a change of attitudes after September 11. I felt that people who didn’t think about it before are now a little bit more sensitized to the fact that you’re dealing with people who might be related to Arabs or Muslims. . . . So, yeah, I did feel a bit of an attitude change. That edge is still there.

Similarly, Salwa says that after 9/11, hate, racism, and bigotry “got amped up hardcore to the point where it was really frightening.” She felt as if she had “zero rights” and everyone “considered [her] to be an alien and a danger.” When asked how she came to be defined as a danger, Salwa points to the media in constructing Arabs, Middle Easterners, and Muslims as terrorists. The idea these groups are associated with terrorism in the media was repeated by many Egyptians, especially Muslims, who found it difficult to watch their communities being vilified. For example, Ermina says, “When they talk about terrorism, they have to say Islamic. . . . When there is an incident that has terror in it, and the perpetrator is not Muslim, they don’t mention his religion.” Similarly, Maya says the media portrays Arabs and Muslims as “a very violent culture” and religion. This association of Arabs, Middle Easterners, and Muslims with terrorism frames not just Muslims, but also those who “look Muslim” (Elver 2012) or have an Arab/Middle Eastern ethnic background.

The conflation of Arab ethnicity with Islam, and thus terrorism, reveals a convergence of race, ethnicity, national origin, and religion that many Egyptians recognize as problematic, especially Coptic Christians, who, because of their skin color, nationality, and/or Arabic-sounding names, are often mistaken for Muslim. Jacob says that Americans “think coming from the Middle East automatically makes you Muslim.” Mariam states that for “a lot of people, their first assumption when you say Egyptian [is] that you’re Muslim.” For all too many Copts, like Catherine, being mistaken for Muslim “happens all the time.” Thus, Coptic Christians often seek out opportunities to dispel these mistaken assumptions. Sofia says that “when people ask me where I am from I say I’m Coptic. . . . You want to distinguish that you know you are Christian.” She goes on to explain that by saying she is Coptic Christian she hopes to avoid being associated with Islam. The association of Islam with terrorism means that the stakes of being identified as Muslim, whether correct or incorrect, is high for Egyptians.

The atmosphere of fear and mistrust cuts both directions as many Egyptians, especially women, describe their anxiety about becoming targets of racial profiling because of their hijab. For example, Daphne says,

I mean there were some times that are more difficult than others. Like 9/11 that was a very difficult time. Although I did not experience any, um [discrimination] . . . it was a very difficult time and I can tell you every time something happens, the Muslim community is always fearful that there would be retaliation or consequences. Yes, I feel that I could be targeted or I could be profiled.

Daphne’s fear of being profiled, akin to what Naber (2006) called an “interment of the psyche,” is justified by the history of racial profiling and hate crimes experienced by Arabs, Middle Easterners, and Muslims (Cainkar 2009; Henderson et al. 2006; Santoro and Azab 2015). On July 20, 2016, a Muslim man, Mohamed Ahmed, was singled out by an American Airlines flight attendant who announced his seat number and said “I’ll be watching you” and was eventually removed from the plane (Revesz 2016). Events such as these happen frequently enough that Egyptians who fit the Arab/Middle Eastern/Muslim racial archetype feel the ever present danger of racial profiling, especially when flying.

Their narratives reflect what Chon and Arzt (2005) described as “terror profiling . . . the selectively negative treatment by both government and private entities of individuals and groups thought to be associated with terrorist activity, based on race, ethnicity, national origin, and/or religion” (p. 238). They argued that the incorporation of religion and religious appearance brings the practice of racial profiling in line with the war on terror. According to Schildkraut (2009), support for “counterterrorism profiling” is higher than traditional forms of racial profiling. Although relatively few Egyptians experienced terror profiling, many described it as an ever present threat that loomed over their experiences at airports. Phrases “flying while brown” (Chandrasekhar 2003), “flying while Arab” (Baker 2002), and “flying while Muslim” (Blackwood, Hopkins, and Reicher 2015) have entered common lexicon in the same way as “driving while black” (Baker 2002).

Egyptians recognize that observable cues, especially brown skin coupled with ethnic or religious signifiers, often identify them as Arab, Middle Eastern, and/or Muslim and therefore potential targets of profiling. For example, Sabrina says, “I mean a lot of them know ok these are Middle Eastern features and they know what Arabs look like, but here there’s also a very clear image of what Muslims look like.” Ismaael says, “I think as a religious group we look different, we act different, we dress differently.” Similarly, Tia expresses that profiling is more likely if you look Muslim. She describes conservative dress, hijab, and dark skin as signs of “being Arab or Muslim.” Daphne, who personally does not wear hijab, says, “If I walk down the street I don’t think someone would point me out necessarily.” Yet she describes the following experience saying, “A friend of mine who does wear a scarf . . . she wasn’t welcomed at certain stores and people would treat her differently . . . Although she carriers herself in a decent way, there was that sense of unwelcoming of her.” Similarly, Inez, who is Coptic Christian, recalls the following experience she had with an African American Muslim friend:

I did an experiment with my black friend. We decided I was going to put a scarf on my head to look like hijab to see what would happen. What was interesting was that no one was really worried or scared of her. They were looking at her and talking to her normally, but they were afraid of me. . . . I just looked, yeah, normally when I’m walking down the street I don’t stand out. OK, I look like a brown person . . . but that definitely made a big difference. I will never forget . . . the guy at the Blockbuster would not look me in the eye. He would talk to her and not look me in the eye.

Although not wearing a hijab, Inez recalls that she, more so than her friend, was treated with suspicion. Her experiment suggests that the combination of skin color, perceived ethnic background, and religious dress influenced how she was racialized. Unlike her friend, who was likely perceived to be African American, Inez’s brown skin interacts with perceived religious dress (scarf) by racializing her as Arab Muslim and therefore threatening. The above comments suggest the importance of religious signifiers in identifying Egyptians as Arab, Middle Eastern, and/or Muslim.

Beyond skin color and religious dress, ethnoreligious cues such as name and nationality also contribute to the terror profiling of Egyptians. Lizabeth says,

Ever since 9/11, I think if you have facial hair, you know any of those characterizing features, or [if] they’re dressed in a different way than someone else people look at them. I travel a lot for work and I’ll see people looking at people at the airport. Just because they look different. . . . I know that with everything that happened after 9/11, I think people do kind of look at you—you’re dark skinned, you have a funny last name, I think after all that there’s a lot of sensitivity around that.

Like Lizabeth, Tia remembers her father being singled out for extra security checks, saying, “Every single time it would be my father because his name is Mohammed.” Salwa recalls being harassed several times at airports. Despite her proclamation that she does not “look like a terrorist,” she recalls having been pulled off airplanes, forced to sit in the back away from the cockpit, and randomly selected for searches all because of her last name. She says, “I don’t wear hijab, people don’t know what I am, but it was my name. My last name is [Awad].” Lizabeth, Tia, and Salwa’s comments illustrate that having an Arabic- or Muslim-sounding name may be enough to become victims of terror profiling.

In addition to one’s name, national origin background can contribute to Egyptians’ being associated with terrorism. Catherine was once introduced as “my Egyptian legal clerk” and recalls the interaction that followed:

And this man, I’ll never forget, says, “Are you going to be flying anytime soon?” And I had no idea what he was talking about. I was just confused. Then it took me a couple of hours . . . then I was like, what did he just ask me!? Really! Like, I didn’t, it’s not like it was happening all the time so I wasn’t aware all the time. But when it would happen, [I] just was like, “Wow, Why?!”

The above narratives illustrate what scholars have found concerning how observable traits, such as skin color, name, national origin, and religious appearance can be used to identify Arabs, Middle Easterners, and/or Muslims as potential threats (Elver 2012; Love 2009; Naber 2008b; Rana 2011). For example, Ramirez, Hoopes, and Quinlan (2003) argued that “Arab-Americans, and those with Arab appearances, increasingly [are] singled out for questioning and security checks based on their skin color, clothing, name, or religious beliefs” (p. 1195). This conflation of race, ethnicity, national origin, and religion demonstrate racialization as a layered process in which their skin color and phenotype, ethnicity, national origin, and religion come to define Arabs and Middle Easterners as a different kind of brown: anti-American Muslim terrorists.

Although Orientalist stereotypes racializing Arabs, Middle Easterners, and Muslims as foreign and un-American are certainly damaging, the discourse associating these groups with terrorism is even more so. The association of Arabs and Middle Easterners with terrorism has existed at least since the 1970s and was codified in Ronald Reagan’s 1980s foreign policy (Semati 2010), yet 9/11 solidified the conflation of Arabs/Middle Easterners with Islam (Garner and Selod 2015; Joshi 2006; Rana 2011; Selod and Embrick 2013). In particular, Joshi (2006:212) argued that the racialization of Islam has reduced Muslims to a “homogeneous, undifferentiated” community associated with terrorism. Similarly, Bayoumi (2006) argued that the war on terror has “reinscribed, through a legal mechanism, the cultural assumption that a terrorist is foreign-born, an alien in the United States, and a Muslim” (p. 275). This progression from “friendly foreigner” to “enemy race” (Tehranian 2009:64) and anti-American Muslim terrorist continues to be facilitated by a rhetoric of fear that portrays Arabs, Middle Easterners, and Muslims as the preeminent threat to national security.

Discussion

In this study I find that Arab and Middle Eastern Americans have been racialized not only as brown and foreign but more specifically as anti-American Muslim terrorists. The narratives presented challenge narrow conceptualizations of race based on skin color and phenotype and highlight how racial, ethnic, national origin, and religious cues identify them as Arab, Middle Eastern, and/or Muslim. Even though race scholars have moved away from strict color-based definitions of race by incorporating ethnicity, national origin, and religion (Alcoff 2009; Balibar 1991; Joshi 2006; Kibria 2002; Meer and Modood 2009; Naber 2008b; Rana 2011; Selod and Embrick 2013), there is limited theorizing on how these aspects result in different forms of racialization. Indeed, Emerson, Korver-Glenn, and Douds (2015) argued that “too often work in the study of race and ethnicity has not taken the influence of religion seriously enough, with the consequence being an incomplete understanding of racialization, racial and ethnic identity, and racial inequality” (p. 349). In this article I address this shortcoming by explicitly examining how religion adds an additional axis of racialization. Thus, this research not only builds on existing scholarship that conceptualizes race as more than skin color but further contributes by theorizing racialization as a layered process in which skin color, ethnicity, national origin, and religion combine in complex ways to produce different kinds of brown ethnoracial groups with different experiences, locations in the racial order, and racializing experiences. I highlight the ways skin color and phenotype result in a broad, yet problematic, brown ethnoracial category; examine how ethnicity and national origin in combination with skin color and phenotype contribute to the racialization of brown-skinned ethnoracial groups as foreign and un-American; and analyze how the racialization of Islam constructs Arabs, Middle Easterners, and/or Muslims as the quintessential enemy to the United States. Unlike Latina/os, who share in the American Christian tradition, and Asians, whose religions are often viewed as peaceful with many of their practices, such as meditation, having been coopted in mainstream American culture, Arabs and Middle Easterners are associated with Islam, a violent, misogynist, and radical religion.

In light of the possibility that a Middle Eastern and North African category is included in the 2020 census, race scholarship needs to increasingly incorporate the experiences of Arabs and Middle Easterners. Although not presented here, I found that many Egyptians self-classified as white yet, as presented in this article, do not believe others see them or treat them as white. This is consistent with other scholars who have similarly found that Arabs and Middle Easterners often self-classify as white yet in interviews consistently differentiate themselves (see Cainkar 2008). More research needs to examine how and why these conflicting identifications occur. There is also an increasing body of research that conceptualizes race as a multidimensional construct in which different racial dimensions are often not consistent which may be a fruitful place to start (see Roth 2016). More generally, however, the experiences of Arabs, Middle Easterners, and increasingly Muslims need to shape future theoretical and empirical research on race. Their experiences are far too complex and important to continue ignoring.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

I want to thank Nilda Flores-Gonzalez, as well as anonymous reviewers, for feedback and guidance on earlier drafts of this article. I also want to especially thank each person who participated in this research.

Author Biography

Bradley J. Zopf is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the department of Sociology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is also joining the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice at Carthage College as a visiting professor. He specializes in race, ethnicity, religion, and sociological theory. His research has been published in Sociological Thought and Research.

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