Even the most patriotic, politically-involved and community-oriented Arab Americans struggle to be accepted by as full-fledged members of American society, says University of Michigan professor Wayne Baker.

Why?

For the new book "Citizenship and Crisis: Arab Detroit After 9/11," Baker and a team of U-M researchers conducted more than 1,500 face-to-face interviews in Oakland, Macomb and Wayne counties - areas that contains one of the largest and most diverse populations of Arab Americans in the U.S. 

Their aim: To get to the heart of why Arab Americans struggle to be accepted in American society and explore the concept of citizenship.

"There's always this tension over whether or not Arab Americans belong or don't belong," Baker says. "Many people in the general population prefer to keep their distance."

Baker, a researcher for U-M's Institute for Social Research and a business and sociology professor, talked to AnnArbor.com about the book.

"Citizenship and Crisis" was recently published by the Russel Sage Foundation. Other co-authors include U-M researchers Sally Howell, Ann Chih Lin, Andrew Shryock, Ronald Stockton and Mark Tessler, and Princeton University researcher Amaney Jamal.

What drew your team to this topic?

WB: There were a number of factors, but the main one was that as social scientists, we wanted to do something with our knowledge and skills that could help in the wake of 9/11. And we saw the opportunity to do the a large-scale survey of Arab Americans in the Detroit area. We had already planned a survey of the general population.

How did your research team analyze the way Arab American communities in Metro Detroit have faced discrimination and acceptance?

WB: We conducted a scientific survey of the general population living in the three counties and Arab Americans living in the same three counties, with the Institute for Social Research, one of the top survey institutions in the world. Working with the experts there, we designed the sample. We decided that face-to-face interviews in the home would be the best way to go. We hired people from the community and trained them to be interviewers. They had to be bilingual, interviews were conducted in English or Arabic. We used all the tools of scientific surveys to make sure we came up with a representative and accurate survey of both populations.

Post 9/11, Arab Americans have been singled out for harsh treatment, including selective surveillance, deportation, detention without due process, vandalism and personal insults, etc. Was this at its worst directly following 9/11? Do you believe the same discrimination is continuing today and to what extent?

WB: Yes, I'd say the discrimination and harassment continues. It spikes when there are major events, but it never goes down to a baseline of zero. We found that Arab Americans in the Detroit region experienced, compared with national data, lower levels of these incidents than Arab Americans elsewhere. One of the conclusions we have in the book is that occurred because Arab Americans are more well-integrated with mainstream society in the Detroit area. There is a long list of prominent people in the community, and that afforded a lot of protections.

Your team found that crises like 9/11 also fueled solidarity and acceptance of the Arab American community. Can you share an anecdote that shows how perhaps one family or person experienced acceptance despite a particular encounter with discrimination?

WB: Many Arab Americans reported receiving expressions of solidarity and support from people not of Middle Eastern descent. One example of this was that a co-worker harassed one of our interview subjects verbally, and the guy's boss stepped in, stopped what was going on and told the Arab American employee to let him know any time this happens again. There were many steps people took to minimize harassment and discrimination.

What surprised the research team over the course of the project?

WB: One finding doesn't surprise us but surprises most people was a basic demographic fact. Most people think Arab Americans are Muslim. The opposite is true here. The majority of Arab Americans are Christians and the minority are Muslims, even though there is a large Muslim population. I was also surprised to the extent to which people in the general population would confuse Arab and Muslim as if they were synonymous. Factually, it's not true. Most Arabs are Christians in this country, and most Muslims are not Arab. But I was surprised to the extent to which people in the general population would use them to mean the same thing. And I was surprised the extent to which people were willing to give up civil liberties for the sake of safety and security.

Juliana Keeping covers higher education for AnnArbor.com. Reach her at julianakeeping@annarbor.com or 734-623-2528. Follow Juliana Keeping on Twitter.