The Arab American Action Network (AAAN) was established in 1995 as a non-profit, grassroots, community-based organization working to improve the social, economic, and political conditions of Arab immigrants and Arab Americans in the Chicago Metropolitan area. The AAAN does this through adult education, social services, mediation and crisis intervention, youth programs, cultural competency trainings, and working in coalitions with other like communities. All AAAN programs include community organizing, activism, and leadership development components.
Located on 63rd Street on the southwest side of Chicago, in the heart of the Palestinian Arab immigrant community, the AAAN published the first needs assessment of this community in 1998. Entitled Meeting Community Needs, Building on Community Strengths, it provides a detailed description of the community’s history and social and economic status, as well as its strengths and areas of need. The needs assessment was followed in late 1998 by focus groups with various community members and stakeholders in order to set community priorities for action. Together these community-based initiatives serve as the basis for AAAN’s strategic plan, completed in 1999; and revisited and updated in 2004.
COMMUNITY PROFILE
There are about 200,000 persons of Arab descent in metropolitan Chicago, 57% of whom are Palestinian, 20% Jordanian, and the rest from a range of Arab countries. The Arab community on the southwest side includes some 30,000 persons. It is characterized largely by two-parent families with an average of four children. About 90% of Arab adults on the southwest side are immigrants. The vast majority of US-born Arabs are children and youth — in 1990, children age 13 and younger formed 49% of the southwest side Arab population. Most adult Arab immigrants came to the US as relatives of US citizens, a migration that began after the turn of the 20th Century.
Sixty three percent of Arabs on the southwest side lived at or below the poverty level in 1990. The median family income was $15,000. Only 47% of Arab adults over age 23 had completed high school. In 1997 71% of Arab households living on the southwest side were economically vulnerable. Thirty percent of families interviewed in our needs assessment had no employed member and another 41% of families were supported by the wages of clerks in Arab-owned stores—wages, with no benefits, insufficient to support a family of six. Also, sixty-six percent of families interviewed reported receiving some type of public assistance. Many were in the process of losing this assistance because they were not US citizens. The low-income sector of the Arab community is growing larger each year as new immigrants come and find few living-wage employment opportunities. Their hopes lie in their capacity to organize and develop leaders in the community who can identify and struggle with the issues that challenge them.
The socio-economic profile of Arab families living on the north side and in the suburbs is better. The 1990 median income for north side Arabs was $21,300 and for southwest suburban Arabs, $35,000. While less economically vulnerable, Arabs in these communities otherwise describe a similar life experience characterized by instances of discrimination, exclusion, and harassment.
Although long a part of the cultural mosaic of Chicago and the US, Arabs have found themselves excluded from positions of power and influence in the city and nation, harassed by the FBI and INS, and subjected to massive, systematic stereotyping and discrimination. The events of September 11th made the atmosphere in Chicago and the US increasingly difficult for Arabs and Muslims. They were attacked even more fiercely than before, with anti-immigrant legislation and policies leading to detentions, deportations, and the criminalization of an entire community. As a result of all these factors, leadership development, capacity building, and sustainability of projects in the Arab community are major priorities, and through its programs, the AAAN strives to strengthen these components of the community’s life.
AAAN History & Background
