and Women’s History Month, Asian Pacific American Heritage Month originated with a congressional bill. Two Representa­tives introduced the bill to the House of Representa­tives and two senators introduced the bill to the Sen­ate. Both of them passed, and U. S. President Jimmy Carter officially recognized Asian/Pacific Heritage Week on October 5, 1978. Several years later, […]

the most widely-celebrated of federal months. It was originally established in 1926 as Negro History Week by noted African-Ameri­can author and Harvard University scholar, Dr. Carter G. Woodson. Dr. Woodson’s hope was that this special observance would remind all Americans of their ethnic roots, and that the commemoration would increase mutual respect. In 1976 the […]

began as National Hispanic Heritage Week in 1968, proclaimed as such by U. S. President Lyndon B. Johnson. It was expanded to a month-long celebration in 1988. This month celebrates the traditions and cultures of all Americans who trace their roots to Spain, Mexico, and the Spanish-speaking nations of Central America, South America, and the […]

is one of the outcomes of a county­wide movement in Sonoma County, California, in the 1970s that brought a focus on wom­en into school curricula as well as into the general public’s consciousness. In 1978, the Educational Task Force of the Sonoma County (California) Commission on the Status of Women initiated a “Women’s History Week.” […]

Other boundary shifts of religion and culture are divisive and polarizing. Controversies over moral values and lifestyles tend to pull people in either a left-ward or right-ward direction. They generate pressures that cut across faith communities, reflecting new alignments of religion, culture, and polit­ics. Conservative Protestants, for example, often have far more in common with […]