Utsav Ghandi didn’t know that Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who devours news cycles like a land-locked tiger shark, recently created an Office of New Americans. It elicited scant interest in the local press, but the young immigrant’s counsel is succinct.
“Focus on those 12 to, say, 19 years old, the age when they may be most confused about a new world of America,” said Ghandi, 19, a chemical engineering student at Illinois Institute of Technology, who arrived a year ago from Mumbai.
He’s worth hearing out due to his newbie status and involvement in a meritorious project aimed at improving understanding among various faiths and cultures, with a focus on the Chicago metro area’s Muslim community, estimated at 400,000, which some say is the nation’s largest.
One Chicago, One Nation is the product of a post-9/11 endeavor called One Nation, largely financed by $200,000 from George F. Russell Jr., of Tacoma, Wash., who founded the investment-services firm best known for the Russell 2000 stock index. His aim was to create positive images of a much-caricatured and maligned Muslim population in the United States.
Tags: eboo patel, Hinduism, Inner-City Muslim Action Network, interfaith cooperation, interfaith poetry slam, interfaith soccer, interfaith youth core, islam, office of New Americans, One Chicago One Nation, One Nation, The Chicago Community Trust, white house interfaith challenge
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