FAWCO was founded in 1931 by women concerned about international peace and citizenship rights.  Later, it was fired by women concerned about their voting rights, who worked with other overseas Americans to secure the right in 1975 to vote from overseas.  It has consistently championed citizenship and voting rights as being central to women's rights, which of course are inseparable from human rights.  This history has determined the positions FAWCO continues to support today.

Our early involvement with other overseas citizen advocates
From their very beginnings, FAWCO worked with AARO (Association of Americans Resident Overseas), founded in 1973, and with ACA (American Citizens Abroad), founded in 1978.  In 1985, FAWCO President Muriel Bremner represented FAWCO in founding the Council of Americans Resident Overseas (CARO) along with AARO and FIAC (Federation of International American Clubs).  And in 1990, following the First World Congress of Americans Abroad held in Paris that summer, FAWCO joined AARO, ACA and the European Council of American Chambers of Commerce (ECACC) to form the World Federation of Americans Abroad (WFAA), sending representatives to Washington on several occasions to defend our positions on such issues as double taxation, citizenship legislation and voting from overseas.  In the WFAA framework, we collaborated also with American Chambers of Commerce around the globe, as we continue to do on various occasions.  As a Founding Member, FAWCO was on WFAA’s Board of Governors, contributing, over the federation’s 5 years, two Chairs, a Vice Chair and a Treasurer.  At that time, as well, FAWCO had a Washington Liaison who served as a valuable channel for transatlantic communication.

Cooperation among our organizations picked up pace again when we took on the challenge of trying to get overseas Americans counted in the U.S. Decennial Census.  From our first efforts at a slogan in 1995  (“You can’t stand up and be counted if no one knows you’re there”) to my testimony at a Congressional sub-committee hearing in September 2004, FAWCO was an increasingly visible and vocal advocate for that cause.   It was very certainly due to the combined efforts of AARO, ABCGC (American Business Council of the Gulf Countries), ACA and FAWCO that, following a 2-day conference in Maryland called by the Census Bureau in 2001, a trial “census” was planned and carried out in Mexico, Kuwait and France in April 2004, with significant input from us all.  That test was a severe disappointment but the flame still burns: FAWCO and AARO are now exploring other options which could, in the much longer term, achieve the original goal of our inclusion.

The U.S. Liaison
When the position of FAWCO U.S. Liaison was created by the 2001-2003 administration, the objectives were to strengthen FAWCO's working relationship with other associations of overseas Americans and to help our "U.S. Citizens' Concerns" committees in any way possible to work with Washington.  Fate and my 1999-2001 presidency had already involved me in FAWCO's census-related efforts, and it seemed not only logical but also exciting to continue.  In addition, the November 2000 elections had clearly highlighted flaws in the U.S. election system and for the first time, overseas voters were in the spotlight.
My efforts therefore focused in those first years primarily on election reform and the Census 2010 campaign, and on coordination with the two associations we have traditionally worked with, AARO and ACA.  We also worked at the time with a new organization called the Alliance of American Organizations - Iberia (ALLAMO), as well as with the American Chambers of Commerce in Europe and ABCGC.
That collaboration culminated in the first-ever "Overseas Americans Week" in Washington, in May 2002, with some twenty representatives of AARO, ACA, ALLAMO and FAWCO joining members of ABCGC for 3 1/2 days visiting the offices of Washington policy makers and legislators.  We have since gone to Washingon every year to represent the perspective and concerns of Americans abroad.

I have taken FAWCO's concerns to Washington on other occasions as well, including twice in the name of several organizations who all supported the same election reform platform, once to testify at a Congressional hearing, and twice at the invitation of the US Treasury Department.  My experience during these visits tells me that this new overseas liaison position was needed, that overseas Americans should not be represented by someone working in Washington and that volunteer organizations should not be represented by professional lobbyists. 

Most recently, other issues have taken the place of election reform as principle concerns of overseas Americans; the unintended consequences of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) have been devastating on many FAWCO members, resulting in the worst of cases in extreme financial vulnerability for Americans with foreign spouses and partners and, sometimes, in renunciation of citizenship.  I am proud to be working in this area with our Citizenship and Tax & Banking Chairs and with our partner organizations to try to find remedies.

My job is made easier because FAWCO and other overseas organizations are indeed beginning to be recognized as the valuable resource they are, representing some 6.3 million American citizens living and working outside the borders of their native country in the global community. The email that arrived in September 2001 from a senior staffer on the Senate Rules Committee confirmed that FAWCO had definitely reached a new level of visibility in Washington.  We were being asked if we could support a piece of landmark election reform legislation that later became the Help America Vote Act of 2002.  My rapid response was that we could not, because a search yielded only three occurrences of the word “overseas”, in reference to existing law, so that problems for overseas voters were not addressed at all.  Fortunately, collaboration between House and Senate staffers and organizations like FAWCO changed that in the coming months (see section on Election Reform).

Adlai E. Stevenson said "There is a New America every morning when we wake up.  It is upon us whether we will it or not."
I would like for us, overseas Americans, to be seen as an integral part of that New America.  One thing I often remind people of is the Census Bureau's stated mission to report on the "people and economy of the United States", reminding them also that the world has changed since the Bureau received that mandate in the 18th century.  I consider that the job of the FAWCO U.S. Liaison is to see that our legislators and our administration come to realize that the "people and economy of the United States" are now a global reality… that includes us!

Lucy Stensland Laederich., FAWCO Counselor and FAWCO U.S. Liaison
February 2006, updated December 2013