Depends what you mean by an "American" temple. There are a number of Theravada monasteries in the West which are mostly populated by Thai or Sri Lankan monks (like the local monasteries in my city). They exist mainly to support their local ethnic communities and while they are probably happy to have others turn up, if you don't speak Thai or Sinhalese you may feel a bit lost at times.zac wrote: well the language issue should be fine if it's an american temple and i doubt there's a crazy waiting list. an english speaking temple in thailand would have a long list for the small american population though.
There are a rather small number of Theravada monasteries in the US and Canada that have been set up primarily for Westerners, such as Abhayagiri http://forestsangha.org/index.php?optio ... s&Itemid=9" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; or Metta Forest Monastery http://www.watmetta.org/. Those are the sort of places I mean when I talk about waiting lists.
Mike