Are Arab Americans people of color? Mayor vote raises issue

cheap windows laptop - #1:Are Arab Americans people of color? Mayor vote raises issue 

Are Arab Americans people of color?

The question has been bubbling beneath the surface of Boston's historic mayor's race, where one of the two candidates, Annissa Essaibi George, has found herself challenged on the campaign trail about her decision to identify as one.

On Tuesday, Essaibi George faces off against fellow Boston City Councilor and Democrat Michelle Wu, a daughter of Taiwanese immigrants. Whoever wins will be the first woman and first person of color elected to the city's top political office.

Essaibi George, who describes herself as Polish-Arab American, acknowledges she hasn’t always identified as a person of color — in part because Arab Americans don’t fit neatly into the boxes Americans are typically asked to check off on official forms, including on the U.S. Census.

“We have found ourselves in this weird position where there isn’t a place for us to identify as Arab," Essaibi George said in a recent interview on GBH News. “It’s unfortunate that Arabs don’t have that proverbial box to check and it is important for the Arab community to be counted, to be seen, to be heard and to be recognized."

She has identified as a person of color during her years in elected office, Essaibi George said.

Essaibi George has frequently talked about the obstacles faced by her father, a Muslim immigrant from Tunisia, and the challenges he believed she would also face as his daughter. Her mother, a Catholic, immigrated from Poland.

In a city like Boston with its long history of electing white men, particularly of Irish and Italian descent, a girl with an Arab name could never be successful in politics, her father warned, with no chance of becoming mayor.

But the 47-year-old Essaibi George, a lifelong Boston resident and former public school teacher, went on to win an at-large seat on the Boston City Council in 2015 and came in second in a September preliminary election, setting up the head-to-head match with Wu, who won the preliminary.