Arab Americans 265 The AAI Foundation focuses on education and research. First, it provides the most detailed demographic analysis of the Arab population in the United States available to the general public, although it is limited by its use of U.S. Census Bureau data. Second, it sponsors Yalla Vote, a voter-registration and get-out-the-vote campaign in major Arab American communities and swing states with Arab communities during the years in which there are presidential elections. Third, it helps organize the Arab American Day of Ser- vice, along with the National Network of Arab American Communities. Finally, it is involved in educational and public opinion outreach to non- Arab Americans, with the intention of improving understanding of Arab communities, culture, and life among non-Arabs. The AAI Foundation has been involved with the Census Bureau as part of attempts by the Arab American community to alter the way that Arab Americans are racially and ethnically categorized by federal data. Since the 1990 census, AAI has been involved in efforts to encourage Arab Amer- icans to respond to census instruments and give full information. This is particularly important because it is widely believed that oficial Cen- sus Bureau statistics drastically undercount the number of persons of Arab descent in the United States. (In its own estimates, the AAI triples the federal estimates.) In advance of the 2000 census, in particular, the AAI was involved in a campaign to disaggregate the “white” designation to allow non-European persons classiied as white to mark themselves as North African or Middle Eastern. This campaign was not successful. However, AAI has remained involved with the Census Bureau, and continues to advocate for better ways of counting Arab Ameri- cans. AAI remains a census information center for the Arab American community, and produces materials in Arabic and English about the census. Helen Hatab Samhan, former executive director of the AAI Foundation, regularly provides testi- mony before Congress and to the Census Bureau about the Arab American community. The AAI has been criticized by members of the Chaldean, Assyrian, and Maronite Catho- lic groups for including these groups among its counts of people of Arab ancestry in the United States. The three groups are Christian minorities in the Middle East; unlike other groups such as the Kurds and Armenians, they are Arabic-speaking, but remain culturally distinct.) In its demographic work, the AAI continues to include those groups in its estimates, but does so while explicitly men- tioning their different identities. Emily Wills University of Ottawa See Also: American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee; Arab Americans; Chaldean Americans; National Rainbow Coalition/PUSH; Racial and Ethnic Deinitions (Essay). Further Readings Arab American Institute. “About Us.” http://www.aai usa.org/pages/about-us (Accessed August 2012). Coalition of American Assyrians and Maronites. “Coalition of American Assyrians and Maronites Rebukes Arab American Institute.” http://www .aina.org/releases/caamletter.htm (Accessed August 2012). Samhan, Helen Hatab. “Testimony Before the Information Policy, Census, and National Archives Subcommittee, Oversight and Government Reform Committee: The 2010 Census Communication Contract: The Media Plan in Hard to Count Areas.” oversight.house.gov/wp-content/ uploads/2012/01/20100224samhan.pdf (Accessed August 2012). Shain, Yossi. “Arab-Americans at a Crossroads.” Journal of Palestine Studies, v.25/3 (1996). Stork, Joe. “Jim Zogby: ‘They Control the Hill, but We’ve Got a Lot of Positions Around the Hill.’” MERIP Middle East Report, v.146 (1987). Arab Americans Arab Americans, those of Arab descent who share common language and heritage, can be traced to geographic areas outside the United States that encompass 22 countries in the Middle East, North Africa, and southwestern Asia. Arabs, primar- ily Christians, immigrated from Syria and other Arab countries to the United States in the 1880s during the period of the Ottoman Empire. They Copyright © 2013 SAGE Publications. Not for sale, reproduction, or distribution.