Washington DC [US], November 8 (ANI): 'Arab America'...the phrase has gained traction after Michigan's Senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed won in the recently concluded United States Midterm elections. Sayed himself alluded to his Arab-American identity in a speech on November 7, when he stated that 'Michigan was the capital of Arab America'.

"I'm honoured to be the next United States senator from the great state of Michigan," El-Sayed said, according to Fox News. "Which, of course, I know we're here in D.C., which, of course, is the capital of the United States of America, but Michigan is the capital of Arab America."

Arab migration to North America (the United States and Canada) has been going on for a couple of centuries, though it gained traction in the last century and the current one as conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa drove wave upon wave of refugees around the world, including to North America.

The Migration Policy Institute (MPI) describes the Middle East North Africa (MENA) region as including: Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco (and Western Sahara), the Palestinian Territories, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. Most Arabs in North America come from these countries.

Meanwhile, Statistics Canada, a Government of Canada website, notes, 'The term "Arab" was not used in census data during much of the time period discussed in this history section, so it relies on other terms used for ethnic or cultural backgrounds, as well as on places of birth in Southwest Asia and Northern Africa. These regions are used because, in the 2021 Census, they were the place of birth of nearly 95% of Arabs born outside Canada. Not all immigrants from these regions in past censuses would necessarily have identified as Arab, even if they came from predominantly Arab countries.'

In the US, migration from MENA began, according to The Migration Policy Institute, in the late 1800s, a time when the Ottoman Empire, the dominant Muslim power in the globe and the suzerain of the world, was already in decline.

According to The Institute, 'From the late 1800s to the mid-1920s, MENA immigrants arriving in the United States consisted primarily of Arab Christians from the Ottoman province of Syria (comprising modern-day Lebanon, Israel, and Syria), fleeing war and worsening economic prospects. By 1920, the United States was home to at least 50,000 immigrants from the province, largely poorly educated and employed in low-skilled occupations. The 1924 Johnson-Reed Immigration Act put in place general immigration quotas and restricted all arrivals from Asia, effectively ending this wave.'

A second wave of migration began after the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and revolutions in Egypt and Iraq in the 1950. 'In part a result of the restrictive U.S. quota system, immigrants arriving during this period were highly educated elites from countries including Egypt, Iraq, and Syria,' according to the MPI.

After the US relaxed immigration rules with the landmark 1965 Immigration Act, a third wave of migrants from MENA arrived. 'MENA immigrants arriving during this time had similarly high education levels as those in the second wave, but were far more numerous. Further, a much higher share was Muslim.'

Migration from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region to the United States began in the late 1800s and picked up in recent decades, driven largely by political turmoil in the region and economic opportunities abroad. In 2016, nearly 1.2 million immigrants from the MENA region lived in the United States, accounting for roughly 3 per cent of the country's approximately 44 million immigrants.