South Cook News

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker is supporting a bill passed by the legislature that would require state agencies compiling or reporting statistical data with racial or ethnic classifications to include people who are Middle Eastern or North African.

HB3768, the Uniform Racial Classification bill, says that a state agency having to compile or report statistical data using racial or ethnic classifications must use the classifications of White, Black or African American, American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, Hispanic or Latino, and Middle Eastern or North African.

Agencies are not required to use the classification until after July 1, 2025.

“History made!” Pritzker posted on Twitter. “With HB 3768 passage, our MENA or Middle Eastern and North African communities will now have their own category on state forms and surveys. My office made this change years ago and I look forward to signing this bill into law to ensure a more equitable Illinois.”

The bill is sponsored by state Rep. Abdelnasser Rashid, the first Palestinian American elected to the Illinois legislature earlier this year, a recent WLS report said. He represents the 21st District.

Middle Eastern Americans are “immigrants and their native-born descendants who trace their ancestry to the Middle East and North Africa,” an online reference said.

“This includes people from the 22 contemporary nations that make up the Arab League: Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, Palestine (the West Bank and Gaza), Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Mauritania, Sudan, Somalia, Djibouti and the Comoros Islands,” the reference said. “In other words, they come from the 22 countries that form the Arab League, and the non-Arab countries: Iran, Israel, and Turkey.”

Community leaders said they have only estimates and not an accurate count of the number of Arab Americans in the state of Illinois, the WLS report said. But that will change and be one of the first benefits when the new law goes into effect.