Jazz: A Great American Export

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Louis Armstrong entertains children at the Tahhseen Al-Sahha Medical Center. Cairo, Egypt, 1961. Courtesy of the Louis Armstrong House Museum.

Jazz is one of those rare phenomena that resonate across cultures. Meridian couldn’t help but notice the recent American Security Project article by Chad Tragakis about the United States government’s mass export of this American music genre during the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. Jazz diplomacy, as it came to be known, introduced and shared a unique piece of American culture to the world by sending jazz legends, such as Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Goodman, Dave Brubeck, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Benny Carter, and Sarah Vaughan, to countries in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. Since then, jazz music...

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Fight for fauna: Recognizing the proliferation of wildlife crime on Endangered Species Day

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The State Department delegation boarded these swamp buggies to explore the natural wonder that is Big Cypress Natural Preserve.

Today marks the 10th Annual Endangered Species Day in the United States. Various events taking place at zoos, aquariums, schools and protected areas across the country will recognize our national conservation efforts to protect America’s endangered species and their habitats. While the awareness events are domestic in nature, they also serve as worthwhile opportunities to bring attention to the heart-wrenching wildlife poaching and trafficking epidemic that is truly a global battle. Last year, over 1,200 rhinos were poached in South Africa alone. The western black rhino was declared extinct in 2013 and there is only one remaining male African white rhino. This estimated $20-billion-a-year market encompasses much more than rhinos and extends well beyond South Africa. According to a recent Washington Post article, there are less than 3,200 tigers in the wild; while over 100 million sharks are killed annually (shark fins are a delicacy used in soup throughout Asia).

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Elections and IVLP: Observing the American Democratic Process

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Elections offer international visitors the chance to observe the American democratic process first hand.

Exchanges are about promoting international understanding. In order to understand the United States, it is essential to learn about our system of government. Elections are a great opportunity to see our democratic process in action. Thanks to the American tax payer, thousands of visitors have been able to observe the spectacle through the U.S. Department of State International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP).
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IVLP brings former white supremacist, Auschwitz Museum workers together

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Auschwitz-Birkenau IVLP group at Meridian for their opening session (Photo credit: Matthew Brooks)

A recent IVLP project from Poland, “Educating about Holocaust-related Issues,” exhibited the power of unexpected encounters during exchange programs. Some professional appointments are more predictably impactful than others, but you can never calculate what will happen when strangers meet for the first time. Typically, the conversation ends when the visitors depart for their next meeting, however, one encounter forged an unlikely connection between one former white supremacist and five Polish visitors from the site of one of the world’s most tragic events.

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