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In addition to spending time with family, eating some burgers, and watching fireworks, I have always used Independence Day as a time to reflect. Specifically, I can’t help but marvel at the greatness of our country and how lucky I am to have been born here.
While each of us has our own stories, mine really begins half a world away when a retrenching British empire decided to leave the Indian subcontinent. You see, my parents were born in what was then British India, and when London decided to pull back from the region, they separated India into what eventually became three countries – Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh. (It was initially Pakistan and India, and Bangladesh became an independent nation in the 1971 after its nine-month liberation war.) My parents, then children, were on the wrong side of a newly drawn line; they were Hindus living in what was now the majority Muslim country of Pakistan.
The partition was accompanied by spasms of unimaginable violence on both sides of this new line, and in many cities, like the ones in which my parents were living, mobs went house to house looking for Hindus to kill. Only a child at the time, my father walked with his family to the waterfront and boarded a cargo ship that was helping Hindus escape. After days at sea, with only a few slices of bread to eat, he disembarked in what is today Mumbai.
When he came of age, he went to work in Africa, taking jobs for months at a time and then returning home. Then one day, he overheard some workers in Nigeria talking about America. “An amazing country! A true land of opportunity, it doesn’t matter what your parents do or who they are… Anyone can succeed there!” they said.
Intrigued, and always restless, he went to the US embassy in Lagos where he inquired about education opportunities in America. He later learned about an auto mechanic school in New York; if accepted into the program, he was guaranteed a student visa. He applied, was accepted, and was once again on to a new life, in a new land.
Barring that fateful day, he might have just continued trekking back and forth between Africa and India, and I might have been born in India (or Africa). Or perhaps he would have gone to Great Britain, as many Indians did in those days. Those would have been easier choices. But he chose a distant land filled with promise, and instead of the crowded outskirts of Mumbai or the distant boroughs of London, I was born in Queens, New York.
My father wouldn’t have found the opportunities elsewhere that he found in the United States. He wouldn’t have had a chance to educate himself, work hard, and save money. He wouldn’t have had the opportunity to own a gas station, and he wouldn’t have had the chance to dust himself off and stand up again when it failed during the 1990s recession. His son wouldn’t have had the chance to earn scholarships to Yale and MIT, earn a PhD, teach at Harvard, advise Fortune 500 companies, or run for one of the highest offices in the land.
I often think about how my life could have been different. I doubt that I would have had the chance to go to Oxford, run to be a member of Parliament, or start a business in the highly stratified British society. And what my life would have been like in Mumbai or Lagos is hard to imagine.
Perhaps most importantly, I wouldn’t have had a chance to truly belong in those countries like I do here. Only in America can immigrants (like my parents) and their children be truly accepted as fellow countrymen. As Ronald Reagan noted, “You can go to live in France, but you cannot become a Frenchman. You can go to live in Germany or Turkey or Japan, but you cannot become a German, a Turk, or a Japanese. But anyone, from any corner of the Earth, can come to live in America and become an American [ [link removed] ].”
“You can go to live in France, but you cannot become a Frenchman. You can go to live in Germany or Turkey or Japan, but you cannot become a German, a Turk, or a Japanese. But anyone, from any corner of the Earth, can come to live in America and become an American”
- Ronald Reagan
My parents say that the day they became Americans was one of the happiest days of their lives, and even though they were born in a foreign land, they are as American as those whose ancestors came over on the Mayflower.
Every Independence Day, I think of my parents and the courage it took to leave behind everything and come to America in search of a better life. I think of the opportunities this country offered them and were subsequently available to both me and my sister. I think of the opportunities my children have because of the decision my dad made to go to the embassy in Nigeria and to take actions that brought him to this promised land of opportunity.
Today, as a business owner with dozens of employees [ [link removed] ], many of whom are first or second generation Americans, I can’t help but see the parallels with my own family. By working hard and saving money, many of today’s immigrants are doing exactly what my father did… creating opportunities for their families and children. And even in this time of political polarization and challenging geopolitical dynamics, individuals from around the world still want to come to America. (How many people are trying to become Chinese [ [link removed] ] or Russian citizens [ [link removed] ]?) The United States remains, despite our many challenges, a beacon of hope, symbol of freedom, and promise of opportunity.
As we celebrate Independence Day, I hope we all take a moment to remind ourselves that America is still the Shining City on a Hill that drew my parents and millions just like them. It’s more than a land, it’s an idea, a belief. That everyone has potential and that by putting individuals first, all of us benefit. And ultimately, a belief that a constant inflow of entrepreneurial risk-taking energy that accompanies self-selected seekers of opportunity is what makes America unique.
VIKRAM MANSHARAMANI is an entrepreneur, consultant, scholar, neighbor, husband, father, volunteer, and professional generalist who thinks in multiple-dimensions and looks beyond the short-term. Self-taught to think around corners and connect original dots, he spends his time speaking with global leaders in business, government, academia, and journalism. He’s currently the Chairman and CEO of Goodwell Foods, a manufacturer of private label frozen pizza. LinkedIn has twice listed him as its #1 Top Voice in Money & Finance, and Worth profiled him as one of the 100 Most Powerful People in Global Finance. Vikram earned a PhD From MIT, has taught at Yale and Harvard, and is the author of three books, The Making of a Generalist: An Independent Thinker Finds Unconventional Success in an Uncertain World [ [link removed] ], Think for Yourself: Restoring Common Sense in an Age of Experts and Artificial Intelligence [ [link removed] ] and Boombustology: Spotting Financial Bubbles Before They Burst [ [link removed] ]. Vikram lives in Lincoln, New Hampshire with his wife and two children, where they can usually be found hiking or skiing.

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