ABSTRACT
Arab Americans are immigrant and native-born persons living in the U.S. who claim ancestry in one or more of the 22 (including Palestine) Arabic-speaking countries of North Africa and southwest Asia. They are the Arab world diaspora living in the U.S. Significant Arab migrations to the U.S. began in the 1880s and have continued in a series of waves ever since. As with other non-European immigrant groups who benefitted from the removal of racial bars (Asia) and country quotas (Arab world), post-1965 Arab immigration to the U.S. is the largest of these waves and also the most internally diverse. In 2010, the largest Arab nationality groups (native and foreign born) in the U.S. were Lebanese, Syrians, Egyptians, Palestinians, Iraqis, and Somalis; significant numbers of Moroccans, Yemenis, and Jordanians were also among the more recent immigrants (Asi & Beaulieu, 2013). There were about 1.9 million Arab Americans according to 2010 Census data, including persons with ancestries in Arab League states not included by the Census Bureau under the category Arab, such as Somalis (Arab American Institute, n.d.). Research by the Arab American Institute and Zogby International placed the actual figure at closer to 3.66 million (Arab American Institute, n.d.).
