Arab-Americans and Iranian-Americans are often resigned to checking off the “White” or “Other” box in forms specifying ethnicity. Sometimes the “Other” box isn’t even available. Which causes such anguish for us Arabs. I then have to decide between “Black,” “White,” “Native American,” “Asian” or “Hispanic.”

I look White, but am not per se. Quarter Spanish, but is that enough to check Hispanic? What do I do?

And checking off “Other” is not the best of worlds either. Arabs and Muslims are already made to be the nefarious, lurking “Other” in Hollywood movies and American political rhetoric, the last thing we need is such a label looking us point blank in the face and then being resigned to checking it.

Well, those days may be over, at least for University of California students thanks to an energetic campaign:

Now several UCLA student groups — including Arabs, Iranians, Afghanis and Armenians — have launched a campaign to add a Middle Eastern category, with various subgroups, to the University of California admissions application. They hope to emulate the Asian Pacific Coalition’s “Count Me In” campaign, which a few years ago successfully lobbied for the inclusion of 23 ethnic categories on the UC application, including Hmong, Pakistani, Native Hawaiian and Samoan.

The UCLA students said having their own ethnic designation goes beyond self-identity and has real implications for the larger Arab and Middle Eastern communities.

[Photo retrieved from Kabobfest as with link to Los Angeles Times story.]

Personally, I am not even sure if I approve of universities asking such questions. But if they are, and “Arab” box should be included.

One final note, this will probably lead to some right-wing group crying about the Arabization and Islamization of American universities. There are always some mentally unstable, fear-mongering groups.