New York Governor Kathy Hochul has signed a law ensuring that North African and Middle Eastern (MENA) populations will be distinctly recognized in state records. According to Gothamist, the new law requires state agencies collecting demographic data to include specific categories for MENA individuals, instead of the broad classification as "white."
The change aims to ensure proper representation for MENA individuals and may help these communities access state resources, such as the Minority and Women-owned Business Enterprise program, though further legislation will be needed for participation, according to the state's economic development office. "By ensuring that Middle Eastern and North African communities are accurately represented in state data collection, we’ll be able to identify ways to support this community going forward," Governor Hochul told Gothamist.
According to an article from Spectrum News, Assemblymember Jessica González-Rojas, one of the primary advocates and sponsors of the legislation, highlighted the misrepresentation and disenfranchisement of MENA individuals due to previous data aggregation practices. "For too long Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) communities have been made invisible by our federal and state governments' lack of data collection or lack of disaggregation. By not including categories for these various communities in the Census and not disaggregating the data in our state institutions, the needs of neighbors have been unaccounted for and ignored," she stated.
Statistics show that the MENA population in New York is larger than previously reported, with census records listing at least 280,000 individuals, while some studies estimate numbers as high as 500,000, as per the Spectrum News report. The legislative change follows similar adjustments at the federal level, including the U.S. Census Bureau's decision to add a "Middle Eastern or North African" option to their surveys to improve ethnicity and race data collection.
