A group of young Jordanians realized a need for a Jordanian American entity to address the social and cultural issues in the Bay Area. It all started between May and August 1984 when seven Jordanians decided to make this venture a reality. Joseph Dayyat, Mwaffag Ibrahim, Waleed Jweinat, Basem Nimri, Wael Qutami, Issa Sweidan and Derar Zawaideh agreed to have their first meeting to develop a work plan. This first official meeting took place at Jamil-Sweidan's house in San Francisco. The core group realized that sharing such a vision with other community leaders would be instrumental for establishing a strong association. Salti Ibrahim and Reyad Masarweh were contacted first and did join the group in their numerous follow up meetings.

The expanded group later successfully approached Terry Sabbah and Munir Jweinat (Rev George Jweinat) who also joined the group. In order to gain broad support and feedback from the Jordanian community, this group of 11 called for a meeting at the Arab Cultural Center on 8/24/1984. During this meeting, Ishaq Qaqish joined the group as the last member of this founding committee. Along with the support of many community members, this founding committee deserves credit for establishing the Jordanian American Association. In less than 4 months, the Jordanian American Association had a constitution of a philanthropic entity and was officially registered with the state of California. On December 2nd, 1984, the JAA founding committee organized a very successful kick off party held at the Jack Tar Hotel with over 600 attendees. The Association had its first general membership meeting and formal elections in February 1985.