Rep. Tlaib Attacks Census Director for Not Having Middle East Racial Category: ‘You’re Erasing Us’

‘I truly believe it needs to be addressed and we need your leadership’

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EXCERPT:

TLAIB: "Sir, it does not have the same impact and you know that. You know that. That’s why the community pushed to add the category MENA, and they did it right, they went through the process and they got it approved. And this administration decided to ignore them and make them invisible again. Right? That is what you are doing, you are making us invisible. Now, the continued absence of this ethnic category attributes to erasing us. We all live and work and raise our families here. I truly believe this issue needs to be addressed and we need your leadership to push back against this current administration lack of wanting to see people like me being represented on an official government federal form that decides around funding, decide how they will treat us and approach health research, language assistance, all those kinds of things. Director, we need to get it right because I am not white. I'm not. And I don’t try to say to others that you should be this or that. But when I sit on this form and I look at it, I don’t see myself represented on this form. And I think that’s a huge issue for people like me, and I need you to do more in pushing back against the current administration ignoring what the previous administration was able to do. The U.S. Census Bureau decided to add MENA and they ignored it."

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