Why did the Trump Administration Remove the 'Middle East & North Africa' Category from the Census?

Mira Nabulsi interviews Loubna Qutami in a discussion of the historical relationship between race, ethnicity, and the census in order to discuss the Trump administration's omitting of the "Middle East and North Africa" category from the upcoming census in 2020.

Mira Nabulsi is a host and contributor for Voices of the Middle East and North Africa (VOMENA). Based in California, she is a Palestinian researcher and communications professional interested in social movements, politics, news, rhetoric, ICT, digital media and language. She has contributed to Global Voices, Syria Deeply. Wired Citizenship: Youth Learning and Activism in the Middle East (edited by Dr. Linda Herrera), among other platforms and publications.

Loubna Qutami is a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley and the former Executive Director of the Arab Cultural and Community Center in San Francisco. Following a masters in Ethnic Studies with the Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Initiative at San Francisco State University, Loubna received her Ph.D. in Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Riverside.