Summary
The Palestinian student organization that linked students in the diaspora to the Palestinian national struggle and was the center of Palestinian student activism in Chicago from the 1970s until the PLO’s abeyance in the mid-1990s (Palestinian Chicago — Identity in Exile, PDF p.66).
Details
- GUPS gave way from the Arab Students Association during the 1970s and coordinated with the nationalist community organizations, whose events students helped staff (PDF p.66).
- Manal joined her campus GUPS chapter after meeting its members at an event, became its president during her senior year, and through GUPS established connections with the Arab Community Center (Chicago) (PDF p.92).
- In the early 1990s GUPS remained the dominant structure of politics and identity on campuses drawing immigrant Palestinian enrollments, and its PLO-faction infighting alienated Mahmoud, who turned in a blank ballot after an outsider from the University of Illinois at Chicago chapter scribbled on his ballot (PDF p.97).
Where sources disagree
- Lybarger gives two accounts of the ASA’s end, both held as printed on the source page: Chapter 1 says the ASA split apart into rival factions and gave way, during the 1970s, to GUPS (PDF p.66), while Chapter 2 says that, beginning in 1978, it fractured when Palestinian students split to form the Palestinian Students Association, which lacked funding and soon folded (PDF p.85-86).
Related pages
Palestinian Chicago · Secularism · Palestine Liberation Organization