Census planning for a new MENA category drew overwhelming expert support
Evidence
A special Census Bureau forum on ethnic groups from the Middle East and North Africa was held in May 2015 and solicited expert testimony from academics and advocacy organizations, including Iranian American sociologist Mehdi Bozorgmehr and law professor John Tehranian. The forum’s overwhelming support for the “MENA” category was also affirmed in 2016 by the Census Bureau’s National Advisory Committee on Racial, Ethnic, and Other Populations, on which Morad Ghorban of PAAIA (Public Affairs Alliance of Iranian Americans) sits. — Neda Maghbouleh, The Limits of Whiteness, 738