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Home Front
The Rising Tide
2003-12-04
EFL
The Arab population in the United States has nearly doubled in the past two decades, according to the Census Bureau’s first report on the group.
I'm so... not comforted.
The bureau counted nearly 1.2 million Arabs in the United States in 2000, compared with 860,000 in 1990 and 610,000 in 1980. About 60% trace their ancestry to three countries: Lebanon, Syria and Egypt. While earlier Arab immigrants came from countries with large Christian populations, newer arrivals come from heavily Muslim countries such as Iraq and Yemen. Almost half of the Arabs in the United States live in five states — California (190,890), New York (120,370), Michigan (115,284), New Jersey (71,770) and Florida (77,461). New York City, the first stop for millions of immigrants for more than a century, had the largest Arab population among U.S. cities, 69,985. Dearborn, where many Arabs first settled to work in the automobile industry, was next at 29,181. Sterling Heights, Mich., was the city with the largest percentage of Arab-Americans, 3.7%, followed by Jersey City, with 2.8%. Dearborn was not ranked because the Census Bureau only counted cities with at least 100,000 residents; Dearborn has about 98,000.

Arab-Americans say their population is larger than that reported, but many are reluctant to fill out government forms because they came from countries with oppressive regimes. The Arab American Institute Foundation said that just over 15,000 visas were issued to immigrants from Arab countries in 2002, compared with more than 21,000 in 2001. The backlash that occurred against Arab Americans following Sept. 11 served to draw them closer and get more involved in politics. The concentration of Arab-Americans in a few key election states, particularly Michigan, also has boosted their political influence.

In October, seven of the nine Democratic presidential candidates addressed the Arab American Institute’s national leadership conference either in person or by satellite, and an eighth, Wesley Clark, had a statement read for him because he was losing his voice. "These days, anything that moves votes one way or another by the thousands can have an impact of seismic proportions," said pollster John Zogby, himself an Arab-American.
Make of it what you will. Just passing along the report.
Posted by:growler

#5  I knew a lot of Christian Arabs in Detroit. Mostly Lebanese. Good people. Too bad they couldn't be left alone enough to prosper in their homelands. When they were chased out, reminds me a lot of the brain drain experienced by Europe during Jewish persecution during the inquisition.
Posted by: Jarhead   2003-12-4 1:29:57 PM  

#4  IIRC, about 2,5 millions christian arabs left their home (mostly Lebanon and Israel, where palestinian christians are driven away in numbers by the Hamas & co) during the last 20 years or so; also, a "significant" part of the "kurdish" iraqi refugees asking for asylum in EU are also said to be christian arabs forced out by the re-islamization of the Hussein regime. Egyptian Copts are also under a severe pressure, thanks to fundies, and their elite tends to emigrate.
Posted by: Anonymous   2003-12-4 12:18:28 PM  

#3  I wonder what percentage of these Arab immigrants are Christians running the hell away from their psychotic ROPMA brethren.

That would be a lot of them. I know of a number of Armenians and Coptic Christians in evangelical churches who are not favorably disposed towards Muslims.
Posted by: Zhang Fei   2003-12-4 11:55:36 AM  

#2  I found this in the Washington Times:

In 1992, the American Muslim Council estimated there were more than 5 million followers of Islam in the country, of whom 12 percent were Arabs. Other Arab and Muslim groups say the number is closer to 6 million Muslims, a population that would make them more numerous than Jews.
"That's way too high. I say it's more like 3 or 4 million [Muslims]," said Steve Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies, a nonpartisan group that studies the impact of immigration.
He and others stressed that Arabs do not account for most Muslims in this country. Forty-two percent of Arabs are Catholic, 23 percent Orthodox Christian and 12 percent Protestant, according to the Zogby survey.
In 2001, the American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS), released by the City University of New York, estimated the total number of Muslims in America to be no higher than 2.8 million — or 1 percent of the population and roughly half as large as the Jewish population.
Posted by: growler   2003-12-4 11:51:07 AM  

#1  I wonder what percentage of these Arab immigrants are Christians running the hell away from their psychotic ROPMA brethren.
Posted by: BH   2003-12-4 11:42:26 AM  

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