India’s Festival of Lights — is celebrated by Hindus worldwide, and often by Sikhs, Jains and Buddhists, too. The holiday is increasingly popular in the United States, where the traditional diya (clay lamp) symbolizing the triumph of good over evil is seen from coast to coast.

For many Americans, Asian food used to mean chop suey, chow mein or other Chinese-style dishes. No longer. Today, Americans have restaurants and grocery stores that feature Japanese, Thai, Korean, Indian, Burmese and other Asian cuisines.

Overseas, U.S. prestige appeared to be a thing of the past. Policymakers and diplomats, hoping to “fix” this problem, used several ways to do so, including turning to public diplomacy (PD), a little-known, among the American public, foreign policy instrument, implemented by the United States Information Agency, established by President Eisenhower (in 1953), at the height of the Cold War, in order to counteract Soviet propaganda.