ABSTRACT
The imagination and construction of ethnic or pan-ethnic categories is a key feature of American politics and the means by which immigrants and subsequent generations participate in the public sphere and become incorporated into the body politic (Conzen, Gerber, Morawska, Pozzetta, & Vecoli, 1992; Kurien, 2007). The establishment of community centers, museums and heritage centers, and other institutions and organizations tends to obscure the contested nature of community-building processes by lending an air of permanency and solidity to collective identities. This chapter explores the ways in which activists have produced the boundaries of the Arab American community and have connected certain identities, interests, and agendas to this community. This discussion highlights how the ambiguous and shifting status of “Arabness” within American racial and ethnic boundaries has shaped Arab American activism in particular ways. The focus here on the role of activists in forming a collective Arab American identity is not intended to suggest that Arab American identity is merely a figment of activists’ imagination. Arab American identity has become meaningful to many people, especially in light of the discriminatory practices and prejudices of dominant groups and the dynamics in American society that encourage people to hyphenate identities (Abu el-Haj, 2007). The analysis instead emphasizes that community building is the particular business of activists, so that their relationship to identities and their investments in them may be different from those of non-activists.
