About MENA Heritage Month

• Mission: To recognize and normalize the existence of the MENA (Middle Eastern & North African) community in the USA by encouraging greater observance of MENA Heritage Month during April, starting in 2025.

• Vision: We recognize that people of the MENA race and ethnic category are a significant and growing segment of American society and we envision a future where their respective cultures and contributions are recognized and appreciated.

• Context: We love seeing broad recognition of various ethnic heritage months and want to encourage greater observance of MENA Heritage Month. We area reaching out to businesses, arts & culture organizations, and government institutions and encouraging them to feature MENA centric programming during the month of April, starting in 2025.

• MENA: MENA stands for Middle Eastern & North African. For the time being, we are sticking with this simple acronym to include MENA, MENA+, WANA, SWANA, SWANA+, and more. We don’t want to get bogged down with granular language, so we are keeping it simple. The US federal government is adding MENA as a category to the 2030 US Census, and aligning with this more mainstream iteration is the most productive path.