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- Tunisian Americans are American people of Tunisian heritage. Since 2005, they celebrate every May 27th the Tunisian American Day. The celebration includes the Community and its Heritage, enduring the Tunisian-American friendship. For reasons of distance and language, prior to the arrival to Tunisia of the Peace Corps volunteers in the early 60's and Amideast in the 70's, there was not even an interest on the part of Tunisians to emigrate to the US. In the late 90's, however, with the passage of the "Diversity Visa" law, the number of Tunisians in America started to grow, reaching around 8,000 by the late 90's. In 1999, the idea of building a Tunisian-American community was born; an impossible task, considering the dispersion of the community and the size of the country. Fortunately, at that time, the Internet and high-tech telecommunications started to really grow and evolve. So, the strategy was to build a virtual community that would, in time, be merged with the offline community. By late 1999, way before Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, http://www. tunisiancommunity. org/ became "the Cultural Home" for Tunisians in America and the Tunisian Community Center, their institution. The modest website, with the help of several tech-savvy Tunisian volunteers over the years, became what is now a powerful, interactive Web presence. Over the years, in spite of always being seen thru a "political lens", thanks to steadfast leadership and many dedicated volunteers, the organization was able to inspire the formation of local chapters that operate autonomously, but carry out the mission of the organization by conducting community-based activities that raise the profile of Tunisia in the United States and promote cross-cultural literacy. The Tunisian Community Center is parent to the following entities: The Tunisian American Day The IBN KHALDUN Institute The Student Federation The Community Gazette
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