Summary
West Bank town whose Christian emigrants formed one of the two founding segments of Palestinian Chicago, alongside the Muslim villagers of Beitunia (Palestinian Chicago — Identity in Exile, PDF p.57).
Details
- By 1946 some 1,500 Ramallah Christians, roughly one-fifth of the town’s Christian population, had immigrated to the United States; forty had migrated to Chicago, a number that rose to 350 within two decades (Zaghel 1976, as cited) (PDF p.57).
- Chicago’s Ramallah Club chapter was organized in 1957 to socialize, introduce marriage partners and fund projects in Ramallah, with the stated aim “not to melt in [sic] the American society, but to preserve our heritage” (Zaghel 1976, 49, as cited) (PDF p.58).
- Of the approximately 100,000 Syrians admitted to the United States between 1899 and 1921, fewer than 6 percent came from the Jerusalem and Ramallah regions, from which Chicago’s immigrants mostly came (PDF p.52).