In reaction to the new Crown Street address of the MENA space, Selma Mazioud, MC ’25, the current president of the Middle Eastern and North African Student Association, wrote to the Herald saying, “I was both excited and skeptical.”
A survey done in 2018-2019 estimated that roughly 6% of the Yale undergraduate population identifies as Middle-Eastern North African. For these 400 students, Yale’s over-300-acre campus has carved out a few hundred square feet, tucked away on the third floor of the Asian American Cultural Center. In 2017, the United States Census Bureau officially recommended that a MENA category be included in the 2020 census. During the Trump administration, however, this recommendation was overruled, forcing MENA individuals to continue to mark “White/Caucasian” on all government documents and applications—a category that does not accurately capture the social realities and cultural experiences of MENA individuals. People from 21 different countries, including Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, and Morocco must condense themselves and the vibrancy, richness, and diversity of their culture into the box that society has deemed representative. For a while, Yale did the same.
The Afro-American Cultural House was established in 1969, followed by the Asian American Cultural Center in 1981. After a four-year battle with administration for recognition of a group that Yale had thus far deemed non-existent, the MENA community was granted two rooms on the third floor of the AACC in 2022. Although the rooms signified progress, they did not satisfy the community’s desire to secure a dedicated space on campus. Sparsely furnished and lacking both a kitchen and a bathroom, the two small rooms were nevertheless presented as an environment conducive to hosting community or cultural events—a role they could not possibly fulfill.
“Logistically, the previous MENA space, on the third floor of the AACC, does not accommodate all of our community and usually gets overcrowded during events. Symbolically, the size of the space seems to be a reflection of the recognition of our presence and affirmation of our identities as separate from other existing groups,” Mazioud wrote to the Herald.
Although MENA students were grateful for the space, they equally expressed that the AACC space felt like a way to quell the unrest from students while also serving as a performative example of Yale’s continued efforts toward diversity, equity, and inclusion.
MENA affirms that throughout their residency on the third floor, the AACC has been nothing short of cooperative and generous, allowing them to host various study sessions and small events. Yet, the MENA students can’t help but feel somewhat like intruders. As a person of MENA descent myself, I can testify that the journey to the third floor effectively simulates the feeling of navigating through another person’s house—tiptoeing past various other cultural events, as I ascend the creaky steps towards the hidden rooms I’ve been directed to.
“I feel like it’s embarrassing to use other people’s space for something that should have been given to you in the first place,” Layla Hedroug, MC ’25, the current president of the Arab Student Association, told me. “Me personally, I feel like a leech.” Hedroug’s comment refers not only to the fact that the MENA room is in the AACC space, but also that its affiliated organizations must receive funding from the AACC. Unlike other cultural houses that get their funding from the university directly, MENA is essentially sponsored by the AfAm House and the AACC. Hedroug went on to express her frustration with the underlying expectation that marginalized communities with already limited resources must then also share those resources: “It just reminds me of how minorities will always be the ones who have to uplift and support each other,” Hedroug said.
After continued efforts from the MENA students, Yale has finally granted MENA a new space on 305 Crown Street. Not quite a house but more than a room, the new MENA floor promises to be a welcoming and inclusive space influenced by student feedback and designed to celebrate cultural diversity and nurture a sense of community.
However, student leaders detect a veiled caveat embedded in the foundations of the new space. In recent years, 305 Crown Street has played host to 15 student organizations including the Yale Herald, the Yale Record, and the Yale Political Union—all of which were instructed to vacate their spaces in spring 2023, but were later allowed to stay for the next school year. “It’s just unfortunate that every time MENA gets something it’s at the expense of another group. Why can’t they just give us something that is ours?” said Kawthar Al Janabi, BR ’26, the political chair of the Arab Student Association.
Still, MENA students believe that Yale’s efforts to give them a space have framed them as an inconvenience to the student population. Whether it be carving out space in another cultural house or displacing other clubs, MENA students constantly have to force their way into the Yale bubble. Additionally, the timing of the whole process has raised some concerns.
After years of inaction from the administration, MENA students were finally acknowledged. “I finally felt like we were being heard and taken seriously by the administration. Being given this space is definitely a big advancement and a step towards the affirmation of the MENA as its own set of identities,” Mazioud wrote. Yet some MENA students wonder whether it was the countless petitions and emails that convinced the institution, or the current conflict in Palestine that ultimately spurred the school to action. Hedroug seems to think it’s the latter: “I don’t think it should take a war overseas for them to listen to the concerns of MENA students on campus….Now they are starting to acknowledge Islamophobia and xenophobia and anti-Arab hate speech, which is absolutely ridiculous because this isn’t a new novel thing.”
The trend right now is to care. So Yale, keeping in line with the current fashions, has decided it is finally the season to adopt a new attitude toward the MENA community. Hedroug draws a parallel between the current times and a “9/11 reality,” where a tragedy initially sparks a surge of care and compassion from the American populace toward the MENA community, only to diminish gradually over the years—creating a cyclical pattern of vigilance followed by indifference.
“[The administration’s] concern ebbs and flows for minority communities at Yale. And this doesn’t only go for us, but is true for everybody else who has to endure the same thing—like all other marginalized groups on campus,” Hedroug told me. “Grateful but not entirely satisfied” ultimately summarizes MENA students’ reactions to how their demands have been met. Although MENA students are excited to finally have a place that they can claim as their own, they also worry about the permanence of their new space and question Yale’s dedication to uplifting the historically overlooked marginalized communities.
