Each week I hope to feature an immigrant who has had a positive impact on American society. This week, as my first featured immigrant, I highlight Fareed Zakaria. I first saw Fareed Zakaria during his frequent appearances on This Week with George Stephanopoulos. A member of the weekly round table, Mr. Zakaria always brought pragmatic and international insight to the round table.
More recently, I read Mr. Zakaria’s newest book, The Post-American World. Despite its misleading name, the book is not about a world with a diminished America. Rather, the book is an examination of how America can improve its position while other nations are becoming more powerful. Towards the end of the book Mr. Zakaria discusses how America can compete with the “rise of the rest” and states that the United States needs to pass one specific test to insure its continued prosperity. “[The United States] should be a place that is as inviting and exciting to the young students who enter the country today as it was for this awkward eighteen-year-old a generation ago.”
What is most poignant about that statement is the timing. Fareed Zakaria, of course, is referring to when he entered the United States in 1982 – a time when the United States was suffering from social and economic worries. In 1982 the unemployment rate reached 10.8%. I hope that America today, with its 7.2% unemployment rate, will be as welcoming to foreign students as it was when Fareed Zakaria arrived. How can I help make America more welcoming? How can we?