Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) students should have the opportunity to self-identify as such when committing to Santa Clara University (SCU), as well as during their four years on-campus.

Currently, there is no way of knowing how many MENA students are enrolled at SCU because of the lack of a checkbox to self-identify as such. With the formation of the MENA Club in the Multicultural Center (MCC) in the last few years, students have worked to build community and establish a more known presence on this campus. However, barriers such as this one makes MENA students still feel invisible. In a post-9/11 world, MENA people experience being hypervisible in terms of prejudice, racist policies, surveillance, and negative media representation, while simultaneously rendered invisible by the inability to self-identify on forms that would allocate necessary resources and support. 

Creating the option for students to self-identify as MENA will increase the sense of belonging for MENA students increasing their retention rates, bolster resources for culturally conscious mental health services, and diversify course offerings to focus on the MENA region and diaspora.

By signing this petition, you are standing in solidarity with MENA students, staff, and faculty at Santa Clara University who want to make sure they are seen on campus. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Quotes from SCU Students:

“SCU needs a MENA checkbox to accurately represent the university’s demographics and properly support the success of current organizations, studies, and events such as the undergraduate MENA club; Middle Eastern Law Student Association (MELSA); MENA Alumni Group; Arabic, Islamic, and Middle Eastern Studies; Students of MENA Descent Social during Unity Week for incoming students; MENA Heritage Month; and the MENA Senior Ceremony. A MENA box would not only make SCU one of the first universities across the US to do so in a growing movement for MENA representation but also create more opportunities to start more organizations, target more MENA-identifying students, offer support and comfort to a historically invisible group of people in the US, and create a stronger Bronco network from prospective & current students, alumni, faculty, and staff.”

“The majority of Americans don’t know what an Assyrian is. With a MENA checkbox, I can express and materialize my culture, and society can begin to include my identity and other MENA voices that have been silenced, denied, and marginalized.”

“I love who I am and where I came from. I don’t expect SCU to have that same love but I demand the respect my love deserves by letting me identify myself as MENA.”

“Not having a category for MENA students makes SCU complicit in our erasure. In the eyes of the police, professors, and strangers alike we are otherized and feared as “terrorists.” We are not racialized as white in the US. So why should we be categorized as white at SCU? At best it’s inaccurate, and at worst it is an erasure of our cultural and ethnic identities that runs through our blood.”

“Recognition is a privilege, one that the MENA community, unfortunately, does not have in the US at the moment. To spark change at more systemic levels, we need to start at institutions such as SCU that are committed to creating and being inclusive and conscientious spaces. A checkbox is so much more than just a thing to tick for those who are MENA-identifying — it is the necessary first step for validating, empowering, and celebrating an entire group of students on our campus!"

"In research, surveys, applications, and other places where the MENA checkbox is absent, I always have to mark myself as “other” or “decline to state” because marking myself down as white means ignoring and erasing my experiences as a child of Palestinian immigrants. In the long run, it means that MENA experiences as a whole are absent in data, contributing to the ways that our complex, real voices are ignored in the U.S."

Suggested Readings and Viewings: 

“The Other by Experiences but White by Law” by Ciara Moezidis

“The Cloak of Invisibility: MENA Representation in the US” by Parwana Khazi

The Limits of Whiteness: Iranian Americans and the Everyday Politics of Race by Neda Maghbouleh 

Between Arab and White: Race & Ethnicity in the Early Syrian Diaspora by Sarah Gualtieri

“Are Arabs and Iranians White?: Census Says Yes, but Many Disagree” By Sarah Parvini and Ellis Simani

“From White to What? MENA and Iranian Americans Non-White Reflected Race" by Neda Maghbouleh

Video: “Rashida Tlaib questions why 2020 Census Erases Middle Eastern & North African Identity”