Friend,

Last month, we updated you on breaking news from the Office of Management and Budget announcing the addition of the long-awaited MENA category. As our team sifted through the new race and ethnicity standards and what they mean, we promised you an update. To help us unpack it all, AAI is bringing together a panel of allies on Tuesday, April 23 at 2:30PM ET. Each of these friends is an expert on the Census. I believe this session will be impactful and I invite you to join this conversation, decades in the making.

Here's a brief backgrounder on the MENA announcement and our upcoming session:

On March 28, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) announced revisions to the Standards for Maintaining, Collecting, and Presenting Federal Data on Race and Ethnicity, known as Directive 15. The revisions, the first since 1997, include the historic addition of a new “Middle Eastern or North African” (MENA) minimum reporting category, the use of a combined question format for collecting race and ethnicity, and the requirement for more detailed data collection by federal agencies beyond the minimum Standards in most situations to allow for greater data disaggregation. These changes are a welcomed step toward the modernization of federal race and ethnicity data, including the decennial census. However, concerns remain as to how the Standards will be implemented in a way that reflects the full racial and ethnic diversity of American communities. Please join us for a webinar with leading experts to discuss what Arab Americans, as well as all racial, ethnic, and tribal populations, can expect from these changes, and how stakeholder organizations plan to address remaining gaps and implementation.

AAI's initial statement on the release of the MENA category is linked here.

For detailed background information on MENA: https://yallacountmenain.org/

Arab American Institute Foundation
1600 K Street, NW, Suite 601
Washington, DC 20006
United States