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CURRENT ISSUES| Volume 52, ISSUE 6, P810-812, June 2017

Arab American Health in a Racially Charged U.S.

      Recent political events in the U.S. and globally, including terrorist attacks in Belgium, Germany, France, Iraq, Turkey, and Pakistan, have contributed to increased Islamophobia and discrimination against Arab and Muslim American populations. Historically, Arab populations in the U.S. have experienced discrimination and stigma since the 1980s, in large part because of the media’s coverage of crises like TWA Flight 847 and the Gulf War.
      • Abraham N.
      Anti-Arab racism and violence in the United States.
      Arabs residing in the U.S. have experienced a heightened wave of discrimination since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Comments by candidates during the 2016 American presidential election about the need to patrol “Muslim neighborhoods,” the deportation of Muslim Americans, and the closing of national borders to new Arab and Muslim refugees have created a charged and stigmatizing atmosphere for Arab Americans in the U.S. President Donald J. Trump has signed an executive order banning refugees and immigrants from seven predominantly Arab Muslim countries from entering the U.S. for 3 months.
      • Executive order
      protecting the nation from foreign terrorist entry into the United States, Office of the Press Secretary.
      Recent incidents including, for example, individuals being taken off of airplanes for speaking Arabic highlight the discrimination Arab Americans face in their everyday lives in the U.S.
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