US Census could get MENA category after new recommendations

'There's literally nothing that isn't impacted by Census data in terms of everyday American lives,' says Maya Berry of the Arab American Institute, who welcomed the MENA category recommendation [File: Brian Snyder/Reuters]

Washington, DC – A United States government advisory panel has recommended adding a Middle East and North Africa (MENA) category to the US Census – a longstanding demand from Arab-American activists whose communities have been counted as white for decades.

In preliminary recommendations released on Thursday, a working group of representatives of various government agencies called for adding “a response category for Middle Eastern and North African, separate and distinct from the ‘White’ category” on the Census.