Abdul El-Sayed on America:

This is a country where there is no ethnic identity, there’s no religious identity, there is just a national identity.

And I didn’t appreciate it as much until I went to grad school in the UK, where I’d meet third generation Pakistani kids and I’d be like, "You’re British." They’re like, "I’m not British. I’m Pakistani." I was like, "Yes, but you’re British. You have a British citizenship." They’re like, "Yes, I’m a citizen of the United Kingdom, but I’m not British. I’m Pakistani."

And so America to me is the notion that we can come together around our differences to build something that’s greater than the sum of its parts because we believe in the process by which we do that thing.

It’s funny, you know, my dad, I don’t think he’s been to Egypt in like 20 years. And he still has an accent. He still looks the way he looks. And you watch him watch the Lions on Sunday and you’re like, that’s a full-blooded American.