B efore my deportation from the United States in 2017, I spent the best years of my life working with the Arab Women’s Committee (AWC), a grassroots formation that focuses its activities on Arab American and Arab immigrant women in Chicago and its inner suburbs (henceforth Chicagoland). The activities of the AWC form a significant part of the programming of the Arab American Action Network (AAAN), a Chicago-based grassroots organization providing social services, education, youth development, cultural outreach, advocacy, and community-organizing programming to Arab Americans and Arab immigrants. Chicago has hosted Arab communities since the early 1900s, when Lebanese and Syrian immigrants first made it their home. AfterWorldWar II and especially after the 1967 Israeli military occupation of the Palestinian West Bank, Gaza Strip, and Jerusalem, Palestinians were the largest, most diverse, and most urban Arab group in Chicagoland, while communities of highly skilled Egyptians, Syrians, and Lebanese gravitated to its outer suburbs.TheAAANwas founded in 1995 onChicago’s South Side by Arab and other Chicago-based activists, organizers, business leaders, and engaged scholars seeking to provide services and empower Arab American communities. The AAAN established the first adult education, domestic violence prevention and intervention, and children and youth after-school program in the Arab community of Chicagoland. When the AAAN was founded, Chicago’s largely Palestinian community lived mostly on the south side of the city; a majority of them later moved to the adjacent southwest suburbs, an area characterized by numerous Palestinian-built institutions, services, and shops and where Arab immigrants and Arab Americans

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赋予芝加哥的阿拉伯移民妇女权力

在我于 2017 年被驱逐出美国之前，我在阿拉伯妇女委员会 (AWC) 度过了我一生中最美好的时光，这是一个草根组织，其活动的重点是芝加哥及其内郊区的阿拉伯裔美国人和阿拉伯移民妇女（从今以后芝加哥）。AWC 的活动构成了阿拉伯裔美国人行动网络 (AAAN) 计划的重要组成部分，该网络是一个总部位于芝加哥的草根组织，为阿拉伯裔美国人提供社会服务、教育、青年发展、文化外展、宣传和社区组织计划和阿拉伯移民。芝加哥自 1900 年代初开始接待阿拉伯社区，当时黎巴嫩和叙利亚移民首次将其安家。二战后，尤其是 1967 年以色列军事占领巴勒斯坦西岸、加沙地带和耶路撒冷之后，巴勒斯坦人是芝加哥地区最大、最多样化和最城市化的阿拉伯人群体，而高技能埃及人、叙利亚人和黎巴嫩人的社区则被吸引到其外围郊区。 AAAN 于 1995 年由阿拉伯人和其他芝加哥活动家、组织者在芝加哥南区成立、商界领袖和致力于提供服务并赋予阿拉伯裔美国人社区权力的学者。AAAN 在芝加哥地区的阿拉伯社区建立了第一个成人教育、家庭暴力预防和干预以及儿童和青少年课后计划。AAAN 成立时，芝加哥的主要巴勒斯坦社区主要居住在城市的南侧。他们中的大多数后来搬到了邻近的西南郊区，该地区以许多巴勒斯坦人建造的机构、服务、