CHICAGO

Between 2003 and 2013, 5,646 Iraqi civilians were resettled in Illinois.

FATIMA

Single mother Fatima Hindi left Iraq in 2006. Seven years later, her daughter is going to attend one of the best schools in the county, thanks to a scholarship and her mother’s dedication.

AHMED

Ahmed Alrais is a trained chef, but he also worked as an interpreter for the US Army in Iraq. Today he lives with his family in a residential Chicago neighbourhood and has applied for American citizenship.

KATHY KELLY

OPPOSITION TO WAR
Kathy Kelly is a pacifist who has been jailed several times in the US for her activism opposing the war in Iraq. In March 2003, she was part of the “human shield” set up in Baghdad to increase the pressure on George W. Bush's government. She’s been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize three times.

ATORINA

Atorina Zomaya, 34 years old, was born in the US. but proudly claims membership in the Iraqi Assyrian minority. She has created an online cooking show dedicated to preserving her ancestral traditions.

THE PARADE

Chicago is the focal point of the Assyrian minority group, and a traditional parade is held there each year to celebrate the arrival of spring. Robert Dekelaita, who arrived in the US when he was eight years old, is an active member of this community. An attorney specialised in immigration law, he is also an art collector.

JACK GREEN

KEEPING HISTORY ALIVE
English-American Jack Green is Chief Curator of the Oriental Institute Museum at the University of Chicago. The institute has been fighting to protect Iraqi antiquities since 2003. Founded in 1919, it exhibits some 100,000 artefacts from the Near East—the largest collection of its kind in the US.