The USA patriotic act and other decisions on policy that Homeland Security, Department of Justice and the Department of Treasury made were responsible for the creation of an atmosphere which sets out Arabs and Muslims as a special part of the population, who are no longer entitled to certain rights and legal protection. In reality, there are hundreds of Arab and Muslim detainees that have been charged, who are being held in prisons all over the United States. Many Muslims and Arabs that live in the United States under various statuses, whether as resident aliens, or as full citizens of the nation have been subjected to background checks, mass interrogations and special surveillance, which are carried out routinely. On the public front, the image that has been created of the Arabs and Muslims, which is mostly promoted by the media and the cable network, assumes an anti-Arab and Anti-Muslim stance. These are normally fronted and supported by a complex network comprised of think tanks that are conservative spokespeople from the United States and other allies, and retired state officials and military retirees. It is this attitude of hostility towards the Arabs and Muslims that has elicited the interest and empathy of Shyrock to engage in a study that strives to explore the struggles of the Arabs to fight for their space, in the multicultural environment that forces them to identify Americans as Americans, while in the process undermining their own identity. His study, therefore, aspires to redefine the position of the American Arabs in Detroit, as a way of addressing the marginalization that these people have continued to experience in the city, and by extension, in other places in the United States. .
In Shyrock's discussion in the article, he uses the terms of identity to highlight the complexities that are associated with the identity of American Arabs. They represent the two levels that the American Arabs identify themselves with.