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The unique issues that Arab and Chaldean Americans face vary depending on country of origin, immigration status, and place of residence. The white racial group is included in the tables to demonstrate why the Arab and Chaldean communities (and the broader MENA community) should have their own box. It is clear that Arab and Chaldean communities have distinctly different populations than the overall white racial category.

The data for this infographic largely comes from a report commissioned by ACCESS and the Center for Arab Narratives. The report was compiled by Dr. Jenʼnan Read (Duke University) and Dr. Kristine Ajrouch (Eastern Michigan University) with assistance from Simon Brauer (University of Michigan). The full report will be published and released soon. One of the goals of the report is to support the need for a federal Middle Eastern of North African (MENA) box, which was finally adopted in March2024.

Data is from the five-year2015-2019 estimates by the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS). Unlike the decennial Census—which is meant to be an exact count of all people and households in the U.S. every 10years—the ACS estimates population characteristics through a representative survey sample carried out in small regions of the U.S. throughout the year.

The data is based on the Arab(including Chaldean) ancestry codes on the American Community Survey (ACS) and thus does not include the Iranian, Sudanese, or Somali community or some other non-Arab MENA communities.

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