'I’m a Muslim Immigrant and I Have Faith in America'

I came to America for all the cliché reasons.

As a young boy growing up in Istanbul, America had assumed a dreamlike quality for me, culled from the eclectic set of American television shows selected for translation to Turkish. To me, America was Cousin Larry in Perfect Strangers, who takes Balki, his Eastern European cousin, under his wings in his Chicago home where they perform the “dance of joy” to celebrate good fortune.