American Society & Values
Documents & Texts from America.gov
22 September 2008 Arab Americans Encouraging Community to Make Voice Heard As part of its Yalla ("Let’s go") Vote campaign, the Arab American Institute (AAI) is encouraging its community to engage in the political process and make its voice heard. Many in the community are doing just that, saying that, like other Americans, their top concern in the 2008 election is the economy.
09 September 2008 Secretary Rice Remarks at the Annual State Department Iftaar Dinner.
29 August 2008 Presidential Message on Ramadan 2008 Bush thanks the Muslim community for their contributions to America.
28 August 2008 U.S. Muslims Observe Ramadan in Supportive Environment Muslims in the U.S. typically observe Ramadan and fulfill their other religious obligations with the encouragement and support of non-Muslim friends, colleagues and neighbors, say U.S. State Department officials Seema Matin and William Lawrence.
11 August 2008 Many Americans Change Religious Beliefs Sitting in Saturday school at age 10, John Mesirow began to disagree with what he had been taught throughout the early years of his childhood. The more he listened, the less it made sense. "People are responsible for their own actions," he said. "To try to blame things on God or take comfort in God seemed irrational to me."
08 August 2008 Opening Ceremony Kicks Off 2008 Summer Olympic Games On 08/08/08 at 8:08 p.m. local time, more than 90,000 athletes, heads of state, journalists, sports enthusiasts and spectators will attend the opening ceremony for the 2008 Summer Olympics at Beijing National Stadium. China, which is hosting the XXIX Olympiad, will open the Summer Games with an extravagant more than three-hour ceremony that will include thousands of actors, dancers and performers.
05 August 2008 2008 Games Could Mark "Strike Three" for Baseball in Olympics Even as athletes from around the world gather in Beijing for the 2008 Summer Olympics, baseball is headed for what may be its final turn at bat as an Olympic sport. Voting by secret ballot at their 2005 meeting in Singapore, members of the International Olympic Committee decided to eliminate baseball -- and also softball -- from the quadrennial games starting in 2012. They became the first sports dropped from the Olympic program since polo was jettisoned in 1936.
25 July 2008 Record Number of Overseas Visitors Coming to United States Despite increasing airfares due to rising fuel prices, record numbers of international travelers are coming to America. It's a bargain for people outside the United States to come here. Hotel room rates in New York, for example, are up 11 percent in dollar terms, but only a mere 1.5 percent increase when calculated in euros, according to Bobby Bowers of Smith Travel Research in Hendersonville, Tennessee.
24 July 2008 Sports Exchanges with Iran Build Bridges Sports exchanges are one tool to help rebuild bridges between U.S. and Iranian societies after 30 years of estrangement, said Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs William Burns at a July 9 House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on U.S. relations with Iran.
02 July 2008 Highest U.S. Court Examines, Interprets Constitutional Right The right of U.S. citizens to keep and bear arms cannot be denied by state or local governments, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled June 26, but it also found the right is not unlimited and can be regulated without violating the Constitution.
27 June 2008 Survey Finds Americans Are Religious, Tolerant, Nondogmatic The typical American believes in God (92 percent), believes in absolute standards of right and wrong (78 percent), prays at least weekly (75 percent), believes in life after death (74 percent) and believes in sacred scripture as the word of God (63 percent). But that typical American is also tolerant of other peoples' beliefs and strikingly nondogmatic in the sense of not believing his or her own religion to be the only path to salvation or to have a monopoly on truth.
30 May 2008 John Updike Explores How Art Mirrors America’s Soul The award winning author author examines artworks that illuminate U.S. culture, history and character.
09 May 2008 Ellis Island Honors Immigrants to United States
Some 40 percent of Americans can trace their ancestry to immigrants who passed through the Ellis Island immigration center between 1892 and 1954.
08 April 2008 Milestones in U.S. Women's History Some of the outstanding people and events that moved women’s rights forward.
03 April 2008 Martin Luther King Jr.: A Life Remembered in Words and Song A new book and CD, issued in tribute to civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., are helping to teach U.S. schoolchildren about the history of their nation's civil rights movement from its earliest days in the 1950s to the present, emphasizing the movement's ongoing commitment to equality, justice and racial reconciliation.
31 March 2008 Martin Luther King's Dream Lives on 40 Years After His Death On April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee, an assassin's bullet took the life of Martin Luther King, the main architect and the leader of the nonviolent civil rights movement in the United States. He was 39 years old. The medical examiners said King died with the heart of a 60-year-old, because he had for so long carried the burden of so many. Some 100,000 Americans stood outside the church at the time of his funeral.
17 March 2008 U.S. Religious Landscape Is Marked by Diversity and Change Religious affiliation among U.S. residents best can be described as "diverse and extremely fluid," according to a new poll conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. The U.S. Religious Landscape Survey queried more than 35,500 adults age 18 and older living in the United States. It was conducted by telephone in 2007 in both English and Spanish.
12 February 2008 President Bush Celebrates African American History Month
05 February 2008 Diversity One of America's Greatest Assets Podcast examines America's diversity in past and present.
04 February 2008 Bangladeshi American Is First Muslim Chaplain in Marine Corps A man who once was a student in the United States from Bangladesh has become the first Muslim chaplain in the U.S. Marine Corps, using his love for God and humanity to help U.S. military personnel of all faiths and backgrounds.
17 January 2008 Martin Luther King's Dream of Racial Equality It was a march and a speech that the world cannot forget. August 28, 1963, an estimated 250,000 people marched to the Lincoln Memorial in Washington where they heard Martin Luther King Jr. give a speech of unsurpassable eloquence. Known ever since from its "I Have a Dream" passages, the speech gave impassioned voice to the demands of the U.S. civil rights movement -- equal rights for all citizens, including those who were born black and brown.
20 December 2007 Women Setting New Records as State Supreme Court Judges Although it has taken a long time in U.S. history, today women commonly serve on the highest courts in the country. Many of these women overcame great obstacles to achieve their positions.
18 December 2007 Interfaith Festival Joins Muslim, Jewish, Christian Communities Religion is not a part of the conversation among her friends at school, but treating each other with respect is, says Jessica, 14, at an interfaith dinner organized by Jewish, Christian and Muslim leaders.
17 December 2007 Indian-American’s Experience Drives Her Immigrant Rights Advocacy When Deepa Iyer moved from India to Kentucky she was 12 years old, an awkward age for drastic adjustment. Blazing a path from there to being the executive director of the increasingly influential South Asian American Leaders of Tomorrow took a combination of hard work, timely opportunity and key influences that shaped her perceptions of democracy.
14 December 2007 American Muslims Travel to Mecca for Annual Pilgrimage Young American Muslims, many professionals in their 20s, are traveling to the Middle East to perform the Hajj, according to travel industry experts in the U.S. This is a new trend, said Rita Zawaideh, a tour operator based in Seattle who specializes in educational travel to Jordan and other parts of the Middle East. Although Zawaideh handles airline reservations for her clients performing the Hajj, she refers land packages to Muslim tour operators in the United States.
11 December 2007 New Film on America To Be Shown at U.S. Consulates, Embassies Visitors to U.S. consulates and embassies soon will be able to watch a short film that introduces them to America’s people and landscapes, conveying the simple message that America is a diverse, interesting and friendly place.
07 December 2007 Religious Leaders Condemn Terrorist Acts Muslim, Jewish and Christian leaders in the U.S. have joined together in an interfaith peace-building effort to condemn terrorism and the violence it causes. In supporting this initiative, the Fiqh Council of North America issued a fatwa, or religious edict, saying "there is no justification in Islam for extremism or terrorism."
03 December 2007 Americans' Political Divisions Not Necessarily Bad, Experts Say Although Americans feel politically divided today, this polarization is not necessarily a bad thing, political experts say. Today, the division among Americans is often depicted in the colors red and blue. American history has shown that there are periods of polarization and periods of consensus in the political landscape. This current era of polarization is seen by many as beginning in the years following the end of the Cold War.
13 November 2007 First-time International Student U.S. Enrollments Up 10.2 Percent The number of non-U.S. students enrolled in U.S. higher education institutions during the 2006-2007 academic year rose by 3 percent to a total of 582,984, and new enrollments rose sharply, according to the Institute of International Education's 2007 report on international education exchange.
13 November 2007 Record Numbers of U.S. Students Are Studying Abroad The number of Americans studying abroad -- which has risen 150 percent in the past decade -- continues to set records, rising 8.5 percent in 2005-2006, according to the Institute of International Education's 2007 report on international education exchange.
09 November 2007 Veterans Day Honors Those Who Served in U.S. Military The November 11 holiday created to pay tribute to U.S. veterans of World War I has been expanded in more recent times into the annual Veterans Day, honoring all those who have served in the U.S. military.
31 October 2007 Improved U.S.-Arab Relations Hinge on Security, Prosperity Officials, diplomats and policy advisers gathered in Washington in late October to examine ways to improve relations between the United States and the Arab world. "We are beneficiaries of Judeo-Christian AND Islamic cultures," said John Duke Anthony at the 16th annual Arab-U.S. Policymakers Conference sponsored by the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations and the U.S.-Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Corporate Cooperation Committee.
22 October 2007 Louisiana Elects First Indian-American U.S. Governor Bobby Jindal made history when Louisiana voters chose him, the son of Indian immigrants, as their next governor. He is the first Indian American to be elected as a state’s chief executive.
19 October 2007 New Film Introduces Visitors to the United States and Its People
10 October 2007 President Bush Attends Hispanic Heritage Month Celebration at White House
09 October 2007 Consumer Protection Has Deep Roots in U.S. History The efforts of the U.S. government and social activists to protect American consumers from dangerous products and unscrupulous manufacturers stretch back to the beginning of the 20th century.
07 September 2007 Program Brings Poetry to Mass Transit Systems When visitors to the U.S. get on the bus, subway or train, they might be surprised in several cities to find themselves reading poetry rather than advertisements. Usually the poetry is in English, but some bilingual posters have featured poems in Cherokee, French, Russian, Spanish and Japanese.
30 August 2007 Immigration Seen Adding 105 Million to U.S. Population by 2060 Since the founding of the U.S., its population has been growing at a rate that some scientists say is unprecedented in human history. Some believe that this population explosion made the U.S. one of the most prosperous countries of the world, but others point to congestion, urban sprawl, traffic, pollution, loss of open spaces and the increase in greenhouse gas emissions as negative effects of rapid population growth.
30 August 2007 After Facing Mobs 50 Years Ago, Nine Go Home to Honors As schools across America begin a new year, Little Rock’s largest high school is planning a 50-year reunion expected to attract presidents and poets. But all eyes will be on nine professionals in their mid-60s - the Little Rock Nine, the first blacks to attend all-white Central High School in 1957. Their enrollment sparked resistance and a constitutional crisis that would advance civil rights in America.
27 August 2007 Term Limits Help Prevent Dictatorships Even as Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez seeks to change Venezuelan law that, in effect, could make him that country’s "president for life," a similar scenario for a U.S. president is regarded as highly unlikely. The 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits an American president from serving more than two full four-year terms in office.
Philanthropy
The U.S. Treasury Department continues to engage with both the charitable sector and affected communities to advance our shared interests in a free, open, tolerant, and charitable society. Related articles:
• 19 August 2008 U.S. Government Offers Help Distributing Donations as Antiterror Measure
• 21 August 2008 U.S. Treasury, Muslim Charities Intensify Dialogue on Safe Giving
• 15 August 2008 Opening Remarks of Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing
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American Society & Values