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Challenges
Racial profiling post-9/11: Following the 9/11 event and specifically during the presidency period of Donald Trump, Arabs and Muslims were targeted due to their identity, and labeled as enemies. Due to the prejudicial association of Arabs and Muslims as terrorists, men are viewed as violent and women are viewed as passive and terrorist extensions. Thus, the language itself is often labeled as threatening and un-American. These common prejudicial beliefs have impacted the daily lives of Arab Americans, making them fearful of speaking Arabic in public.

Hate crimes are common, and the only way for non-Arabic people to distinguish those who are Arabic is through observing their language. In 2015, Said Othman just picked up his wife and son from school and were taking a casual stroll down a neighborhood. While speaking Arabic to his wife, the couple encountered two teenage boys who cursed and stabbed Othman, clearly stating that he deserved to be stabbed for being Arab. This exemplifies the risk that Arab Americans are subjected to in their daily lives for speaking their language. Many Arabic teachers believe that Arabic is not a language to be used on streets because of possible implications and potential threat perceived by non-Arabs. This impacts their teaching strategies, and affects the motivation for students to learn Arabic knowing that they have to be careful when speaking it in public. In Chicago, protests were held to call for law enforcement to stop the racial profiling against Muslims and Arabs. The community has received multiple suspicious activity reports (SAR) just for daily activities, including taking photos and speaking Arabic. With constant fear surrounding speaking the language, the continued use of it could potentially decrease, and students would be less likely to learn the language.

Additionally, the Khalil Gibran International Academy, a dual language school of Arabic and English, was meant to open in Brooklyn, NY, on September 4, 2007, but was met with panic and resistance upon its opening. Conservative columnists claimed that the school has a fundamentalist Islamic curriculum. The school first caught attention when the first principal of school, Debbie Almontaser, was labeled as the “intifada principal” for seemingly defending the Palestinian intifada. With the accusation of her attempting to start a jihad in NY, she was eventually fired and replaced by a Jewish principal. This portrays the language panic as people disregarded the facts that Khalil Gibran International Academy’s curriculum also incorporated other faiths, such as Judaism, and that Khalil Gibran is a peace advocate and Christian by faith. However, none of these mattered when it came to evaluating the public and political discourse of this academy. This further shows the linkage of the terms Arab, Muslim, jihadist, threatening, and terrorist to non-Arabs with little to no knowledge of these terms.

Flaws of Arabic language programs: When it comes to the Arabic language itself, multiple challenges still remain despite the increasing investment in Arabic language programs. There is a lack of formal training to prepare and support the teachers for teaching Arabic. This affects the quality of the learning and hinders further development and maturity of the programs. Since Arabic is the native language of over twenty sovereign nations and territories, each region has its own dialect, and some regions speak more than one form of it. This creates an issue as students of Arabic language programs can be composed of different backgrounds, thus speaking different variations of the language. Deciding which form of the language to use for instructions and how to improve teaching techniques to be inclusive of all the students becomes important. Besides students from the different regions of the Arabic Muslim world, Arabic is also a language of Islam to non-Arab followers of Islam. The diversity of the speakers of the language imply that there is no single Arabic identity in the United States. The language could be used for communication for some while only being used during the practice of religion for others.

English potentially replacing Arabic: Another challenge posed to the Arabic language in the United States is the replacement of Arabic with English. During the first wave of Arab immigration, Christianity was the dominant faith and most were tradesmen. English was used as the language of worship in Arab churches due to the lack of priests who speak Arabic or Syriac. Most of these Arab tradesmen were willing to learn English as well. In the twentieth century, Arabs taught and spoke to their children English in order to create an American identity, leaving no time and use for Arabic. Arabic only started to be picked up again after the 1960s when it was used in church and media.

Similar to other cultural minority groups in the U.S., by the third generation, it is predicted that English will become the primary language as the newer generation becomes more Americanized and assimilated into the western culture. This poses a challenge in preserving the Arabic language as a heritage language. Language is often viewed as part of identity, so maintaining the language is crucial for Arabic in the U.S. Thus, more effort and research are still needed to implement more and better Arabic language programs whether to maintain Arabic as the heritage language of Arab Americans or to be taught to non-Arabs for other purposes.