Immigration Stories From Hull House & Chicago

Stories are powerful tools for informing and educating. At this virtual meeting of the Chicago WILPF Branch, we’ll be lifting up stories of past immigrants to Chicago and more recent arrivals too.

We’ll hear about an early proponent of peaceful conflict resolution among Chicago's Greek Community, Evangelos Diamontitas. His struggles to maintain and nurture peace in a warrior Greek diaspora culture will be presented, along with the stories of other Greek immigrants to Chicago. Early Greek immigrants were still fighting the Balkan Wars but forced to live close by long term tribal and cultural ‘enemies’. Diamontitas courageously and effectively won hearts and minds for peace and community-building.

The Little Theatre at Hull-House’s performance tour of Euripides' peace-centered play ‘The Trojan Women’. For decades the classic Greek plays were used at Hull-House, and as part of a national tour, to break down prejudice against "New Immigrants" from Eastern and Southern Europe, including Jewish immigrants from Russia and others whom the US Immigration Service was beginning to view with alarm.

Our Featured Speaker KATHERINE KELAIDIS is Director of Research and Content at the National Hellenic Museum in Chicago, IL.

Katie holds a B.A. in Classics from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Ph.D. in Classics from the University of London. Dr. Kelaidis is currently a Fellow of the Institute of Orthodox Christian Studies, Cambridge and has previously held posts at the Institute of Classical Studies, Freie Universitat Berlin, and Oxford University. Her current academic work focuses on the deployment of historical narratives in shaping Eastern Christian identity and discourse in the diaspora.

In addition to her academic work, Dr. Kelaidis writes and comments regularly in the popular press. She is a Senior Editor at Religion Dispatches, and her work has also appeared in several other publications including The Atlantic, The Spectator, and Salon. Her first book Holy Russia? Holy War? is now available from SPCK Press.

Women's International League for Peace & Freedom is the oldest international women's peace organization in the world, founded in 1915 by Jane Addams of Hull House and other international women leaders. Learn more at www.WILPFus.org.