‘Do I really need to check that box?’ Ethnoracial ambiguity among Indigenous North Africans in the United States

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article examines the experiences of Amazigh people (plural: Imazighen) and how they negotiate ethnoracial hierarchies in the United States. Imazighen are Indigenous peoples from North Africa; upon arrival to the U.S., they are confronted with ethnoracial categories into which they don’t fit neatly, particularly due to their Indigenous status. Drawing on interviews with 75 Imazighen, we explore how they navigate ethnoracial identity through five themes: (1) illegibility in racial appraisal through everyday interactions; (2) navigating pre-existing ethnoracial hierarchies; (3) discourses about being ‘African (American), but not Black,’ which results in ‘lumping’ by geography, but ‘splitting’ by race; (4) discourses about being ‘not Arab,’ which results in ‘splitting’ processes to highlight Indigeneity; and (5) being appraised as Latine and ‘lumped’ through perceived proximity to other racialized groups. This article explores how a categorically ambiguous population grapples with everyday moments of racial appraisal and how they arrive at a sense of reflected race. Because the labels they are accustomed to (e.g. Amazigh or Berber) are illegible in the U.S., they become open to racialization processes, usually in conversation with notions of Arabness and Africanness. Simultaneously, they challenge norms of racial classification, particularly by introducing an Indigenous dimension.