The New Arab Profilers
Arab American Business Magazine, Angie Latif, Posted: Feb 03, 2003
Samia El-Badry confidently pored forth statistics on Arab Americans from her Austin, Tx. office in response to calls from reporters in the days after 9/11. Helen Samhan found herself equally in demand on the East Coast as the news media grappled to identify, quantify and examine the Arab American population in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
Many major U.S. news outlets over the next few weeks and months gave extensive coverage and splashed stories rich with photos on their front covers focusing on the Arab American community. Invariably, reporters and producers alike found themselves making the trek to either El-Badry, Samhan or both as they realized how difficult it is to quantify the Arab American presence and character in the U.S. Such was life in the maelstrom when you are one of the few sources of solid information on the Arab American community.
“In chaos there is always opportunity,” says El-Badry. In some respects that statement – said in reference to the confusion that reigned after 9/11 – exemplifies El-Badry’s longstanding approach to her career.
The statement is particularly fitting today with regard to Arab American demographic data, an area in which she has created an opportunity for herself and continues to break new ground. El-Badry shares this distinction with Samhan, executive director of the Arab American Institute Foundation. The path to becoming a demographic expert was very different for El-Badry and Samhan. Their disparate background notwithstanding, both eventually came to share a mutual concern for the fair representation of Arab Americans. (Despite the focus on the community in the aftermath of 9/11, Arab Americans remain one of the least studied ethnic groups in the U.S. Demographic information with regard to Arab Americans is fairly recent. Both Samhan and El-Badry have worked diligently with the U.S. Census Bureau to ensure exploration into this statistically untapped culture.)
(The 1990 U.S. Census, for example, was criticized by both Samhan and El-Badry as having underreported Arab American numbers and not having had a reliable definition of what constitutes an “Arab”. El-Badry and Samhan have identified and reported the discrepancies and potential reasons for lack of information. Ethnic data gathered as part of the 2000 U.S. Census will not be out until the spring of 2003.)
Breaking the ‘Contraints of Culture’
Self sufficient since the age of 16, the charismatic, Egyptian-born El-Badry says she is an entrepreneur who has “broken away from the constraints of culture” to position herself as a demographic authority on the Arab American population.
El-Badry holds a bachelor degree in Psychology from the State University of New York. She began her career working at CBS news in N.Y. as a foreign desk assistant. El-Badry then worked in sales and marketing, where she dealt with long term data. She did extensive research and development in market analysis, emerging markets, population consumption patterns and ethnic diversity.
She later earned a Ph.D. in Sociology/Demography from the University of Texas. After working as a consultant, El-Badry launched her own company in 1993. Today, she is president of International Demographic and Economic Associates (IDEA) and vice president of Teknecon Energy Risk Advisors (TERA) in Austin, Texas.
In a testament to her expertise, El-Badry also serves on the Commerce Secretary’s Census 2000 Advisory Committee, representing the Arab American community. She is also the Arab American demographer on the Decennial Census Advisory Committee, which reports to the Secretary of Commerce.
Reconnecting
Samhan is the executive director of the Arab American Institute Foundation, an affiliate of the Arab American Institute in Washington D.C. (AAI is a certified Census Information Center, which serves as a liaison between the public and the U.S. Census Bureau.)
After obtaining a bachelors degree in French at Marymount College in Tarrytown, New York, Samhan took an interest in learning more about her Arab heritage.
“I decided to explore Mideast area studies as a way to reconnect with my ethnic heritage,” says Samhan, who was born to Lebanese and Syrian parents.
Shortly after completing her bachelor’s work, she left for Beirut. While there, Samhan attended the American University of Beirut (AUB) and received a Masters in Middle Eastern Studies, with a focus in Sociology. It was during this time that she also studied the nation’s history and “developed a distinct interest in immigrants,” which she carried with her upon returning to the U.S. Samhan then settled in New York, taking on various jobs involving Arab American relations. vIn 1980, Samhan joined the staff of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) while that organization was still in its start-up years. Five years later, Samhan moved to the Arab American Institute, which was founded by James Zogby after disagreements over the direction of the ADC. At AAI Samhan has devoted much of her time to demographic studies on Arab Americans.
Mutual Admiration
Aside from being good friends for over a decade, El-Badry’s and Samhan’s focus, expertise and personalities have complemented one another.
“Samia is intrepid in her advocacy for better Arab American data and is unafraid to be direct and straightforward on the often controversial issues surrounding racial and ethnic measurement,” says Samhan. “We have a dynamic partnership wherein my focus on the political and community contexts of these issues has promoted Samia to refer to me as ‘the diplomat’.”
As key contributor to the U.S. Census Bureau’s effort to accurately count and characterize Arab Americans, Dr. El-Badry works from within the walls of that organization.
Samhan, on the other hand, is focused on serving the community from the outside, choosing to translate and analyze bureau data after it has been released. Her goal is to take much of the information released by the U.S. Census Bureau and to put it in a comprehensible form to be disseminated to the general Arab American public and key policy making bodies.
Over the years, the two have worked closely with executives and bureaucrats at the U.S. Census as well as with reporters and producers in compiling data on Arab Americans and then explaining the significance of that data. Along the way, the two have made an impression.
“Samia was a dedicated member of one of our key advisory groups,” says Kenneth Pruitt, former director of the U.S. Census Bureau. “She was a forceful advocate for ensuring that Arab Americans were fully counted in the census. But her contribution went beyond advocacy to include cogent advice and commentary on a range of critical census issues, especially on how to engage and motivate the public to cooperate in what we all recognized to be one of the largest and most important civic ceremonies in American public life.”
A top official currently within the Census Bureau similarly praises Samhan, although asked to do it anonymously because of rules from the Census Bureau’s legal office.
“Helen has been a tireless advocate for the Arab American population, making sure the Census Bureau is aware of the importance of including Arab statistics in standard census products,” he says. “Helen has been an extremely active participant in the Census partnership programs, helping us to reach Arab populations during the decennial census, and inviting us to hear the needs of her community during meetings of the Arab American Institute.”
Even reporters, always careful of publicly praising sources lest they be accused of a certain bias, have chimed in. Jonathan Tilove, a reporter for Newhouse News Service, which owns 30 dailies across the country, recognized early in the aftermath of 9/11 that Samhan would emerge as a key source of information in the weeks and months following that event.
“I was writing quickly in the aftermath of Sept. 11 [and] I realized that Helen Samhan was the person directly responsible for the kind of information I was looking for,” Tilove says. “I was very impressed by … her responsiveness at a difficult time. As a reporter trying to fairly describe a community that is not well described in an official ‘Census’ sense, it was of great importance to be able to turn to someone like Ms. Samhan who has been seriously looking at these questions for some time.”
Personal Views
Samhan, married to Arab American Dr. Muhammad H. Samhan, has two children, Leila and Ziad. She focuses on encouraging the Arab American community to take pride in their heritage and raise one collective voice to fight their natural intimidation in the battle against discrimination, especially after 9/11.
“Remember that the most patriotic things we can do as Americans of Arab descent are to speak out when you hear or see something unfair, to demand your rights even if you are tempted to hide,” she says. It’s important “to look for allies in other communities and organizations, to not let bigots rob you of your culture or pride, and to vote.”
El-Badry who has a 9 year old daughter, Serafina, with her American husband, Peter K. Nance, advocates assimilation into the American community. She feels that blending in with American counterparts lessens the differences and enforces better relationships.
“Participate in as many local political activities as possible,” she says. “Join the mainstream of your community, we don’t have to stand out as Arabs, we know who we are. They will want to get to know us because we are folks living next door and help out in the community we live in.
Not the communities back in the Middle East, not the community of our religious ideology, but thecommunity we live in and the politics and taxes of that community.”
Samhan believes this approach will lead to an more powerful Arab American voice and a more enlightened approach from politicians in dealing with the community.
“While we may be in for some rocky times in the post 9/11 political climate and some will face suspicion in the ongoing war on terrorism, our level of civic activism and coalition work points toward more respectability and protection,” she says. “The young U.S. born generation of immigrant children has strong professional skills and equally strong commitment to ethnic retention and social justice. It is a promising combination.”
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