Over the many years I have been involved with the Arab American public, I have had to contend with myths and misunderstandings about the community’s attitudes towards the major issues of concern in the United States.
This month, the Arab American Institute (AAI) commissioned Zogby Analytics of New York to conduct a poll of 400 Arab American voters.
What we found was that Arab Americans remain extremely proud of their heritage, despite having been targeted by discrimination. They also continue to identify as Democrats and favour the party’s approach to most issues – despite their growing dissatisfaction with Barack Obama.
We have poll data going back to 1996, so we have been able to track changes in attitudes over two decades. The fact that 87 per cent of Arab Americans continue to feel deep pride in their ethnicity is impressive, especially when this is weighed against the growth in the American public’s negative attitudes towards people of Arab descent. This continuing ethnic pride is also significant in the face of the 43 per cent of Arab Americans who report having “experienced discrimination because of [their] ethnicity or country of origin”.
When compared with data from previous years, pride in ethnicity has remained constant (more than 80 per cent), but the percentage of those who report having experienced discrimination has grown from 30 per cent in 2002 to 43 per cent today. The percentage of those who identify as “Arab American” has also continued to increase.
This stated preference in claiming an “Arab American” identity is shared by all subgroups within the community (immigrant or native-born, Christian or Muslim, and young or old).
In fact, the only subgroup where a majority does not prefer to identify as “Arab American” are those who are registered Republicans. In 2014, as in the past three polls, Democrats outnumber Republicans by nearly a two to one margin. This year 44 per cent identify as Democrats as opposed to 23 per cent who say they are Republicans.
Of those who said they voted in 2012, 65 per cent claim to have voted for Barack Obama. But not unlike the rest of the American public, Arab Americans now give President Obama a negative job rating (59 per cent negative). At the same time, only 13 per cent give Congress a positive rating for its performance. Given this lack of confidence in government, it is not surprising that a majority (55 per cent) say that they feel the country is heading in the wrong direction.
Nevertheless, Arab Americans have not lost their sense of optimism, with two-thirds saying that they have some confidence that their children will have a better life than they have right now.
This confidence stands in marked contrast to the attitudes of the American public at-large, where only one-third are optimistic that their children will be better off in the future.
But what are the most important issues facing the United States today?
For Arab Americans, it is jobs and the economy, followed by foreign policy, health care and education. The issues of immigration, budget, taxes and terrorism feature further down the list.
On all of these issues – with the exception of foreign policy – Arab Americans say they believe that Democrats will do a better job than Republicans.
Not surprisingly, when it comes to determining which party will do better in handling the Israeli-Palestinian issue or deal with terrorism and national security, most Arab Americans say they have confidence in neither party.
Taken together, these findings paint a portrait of Arab Americans as an ethnic community that is self-aware, proud of its heritage and confident in the future. The poll also demonstrates that Arab Americans are concerned about the state of politics in the US and attentive to the issues facing the country today.
Dr James Zogby is the president of the Arab American Institute
Twitter: @aaiusa