The idea of forming a US Chapter of ACLALS emerged from discussions in March 1999 when Terri Hasseler and I served as panelists at session on contemporary race issues at a meeting of SNECORE (Southern New England Consortium on Race and Ethnicity) hosted by Rhode Island College in Providence, RI.  At an informal lunch, Terri and I were sharing with colleagues the great experiences we two had had with ACLALS chapter conferences in Jamaica and India respectively.   We had both been impressed by the genuinely open and global forums of exchange these two ACLALS chapters provided. On that mild March 1999 afternoon, many of our colleagues wondered why an ACLALS chapter had never been established in the U.S.