There is concern in the community about how they will be shown, if their faces will be seen. Recent immigrants from Syria have easily understandable worries – they’ve just fled a civil war. But among longer-established families, what is the fear?
“You know, there was a period when it wasn’t cool to flaunt that you were a Syrian-American,” says Thomas Sabbagh, who leads the St. Basil choir on Sunday mornings.
Arab Christians, he says, are trying “to ride under the radar and still profess their faith without highlighting (it). I don’t think it’s about their Syrianness as much it is their Christianity.”
Why did he decide to talk, then?
“I think people should know,” says Sabbagh, “that we are here and that we are very proud Christians and very proud Syrian Americans who have carried on a tradition for a hundred years here.”
In the backlash against Syrian refugees in the U.S. following terror attacks in Paris in late 2015, what stood out was in part anti-Arab sentiment, but largely, Islamophobia.
Still, there’s long-standing reluctance in the Arab-American community when it comes to public participation, Zogby and his staff note. Even generations after emigrating to the U.S., there is still an interest in keeping a low profile.
“When we poll, we find that 30-something percent (of Arab Americans) have experienced some form of discrimination, but two-thirds fear they will experience it.”
“This crosses religious and ethnic lines,” he added. “(It’s) that sense that ‘I am what I am in my church and my home, but it’s not part of my public persona.’”
Eleanor Doumato, in 1986, acknowledged similar concerns. In light of conflicts in the Middle East, she wrote, Arab-Americans “receive vilification directed at the Arab people in the American media.”
“Consequently, fear of prejudice, of losing business or a job, or of not being hired or promoted is a pervasive concern for many Americans of Arabic-speaking descent.”
Matt Stiffler is a professor of Arab-American studies at the University of Michigan, as well as a historian for the National Arab-American Museum. He says because of the nativist movement and backlash against the first wave of immigrants from the Middle East — including the Immigration Act of 1924 that effectively banned immigration from the region into the mid-20th-century – a fear of self-identifying as Arab was passed down.
“I think they understood – ‘in the U.S., they don’t like Arabs,’” says Stiffler. “Parents refused to teach Arabic to (their children). They thought it would hurt you.
“They passed down the food and the religion. Not much else… It’s still engrained – Arab is a dirty word.”
Consequently, older generations tend to identify more by country of origin: Lebanese, Syrian, Iraqi. But younger ones, like Stiffler’s college students, are more accepting of calling themselves “Arab.”
A study by the Arab American Institute as recently as December 2015 found only 40 percent of survey respondents had a favorable opinion of Arab-Americans – deteriorating from 49 percent just five years earlier. Thirty percent of respondents admitted they had an unfavorable attitude toward Arabs in the U.S.