Pioneers of Possibility
From a Bangladesh Village to the Governor's Cabinet. At 35. | Akbar Hossain | PoP Ep. 22
Description
In this episode, Kareem sits down with Akbar Hossain, Secretary of Policy and Planning for Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro — one of the highest-ranking Muslim officials in any state government in the entire country. He is 35 years old. Akbar was born in a remote village in Bangladesh to parents who never finished high school. His father left — the only person in his family to do so — and eventually made his way to Saudi Arabia as a welder, where he brought the family to join him in Jeddah. The journey to America started at a mall kiosk in Saudi Arabia, where Akbar's parents jokingly signed up for the diversity visa lottery. Six months later, a white envelope arrived at his grandparents' village. Nobody could read English, so they brought it to a local schoolteacher, who told them: I don't know much English, but I can see the words "congratulations" and "visa." That seems like a good thing. Their flight to America was booked for September 11th, 2001. They left three days early because the apartment lease expired and his parents didn't want to pay for an extra month. They landed at JFK on September 9th. Two days later, the world changed — and a family of Bangladeshi immigrants in a New Jersey motel, scammed out of their savings by the contact they'd trusted to help them resettle, found themselves in a country that suddenly viewed people who looked like them as the enemy. What saved them was a Pakistani man running an Indian restaurant on a random street corner, who called his brother-in-law in Norristown, Pennsylvania. That man drove from Norristown to New Jersey, picked them up, found them an apartment, got Akbar's father a job, enrolled the kids in school, and didn't ask for a penny. Three years later, Akbar's father died of a heat stroke while mowing a lawn. His mother chose to stay and see the dream through. She went to work in a light bulb factory. Akbar got a job at a Sunoco station. He had no plans to go to college until a guidance counselor sat him down, put a map on the table, drew a circle one hour out from Norristown, and made him apply to every school inside it. He ended up at Franklin & Marshall, interned at the Obama White House, clerked for a federal judge in Philadelphia, got ten rejections in a row trying to leave corporate law, and landed as the first hire on Josh Shapiro's gubernatorial campaign — on the strength of a job interview that never called him back. Listeners will also hear about: * What the Secretary of Policy actually does — overseeing 22 cabinet agencies and the implementation of the governor's entire agenda * The I-95 collapse — how a six month repair estimate became 12 days through three-shift union labor, recycled glass fiber fill, and a live webcam that drew 200 viewers around the clock * Pennsylvania as the only growing economy in the northeast — $40 billion in private investment and 22,000 new jobs in three and a half years, more than the prior 15 years combined * Free breakfast for every child in Pennsylvania regardless of income — $50 million a year of state money filling the gap the federal program leaves behind * Why Akbar thinks echo chambers are the single biggest threat to functional government — and why a little tension in politics is actually healthy - Two principles he lives by: people are policy, and policy is personal * His advice to young people, especially immigrants and children of immigrants: be the hardest worker in the room, and never be afraid to ask for help He closes with something that stays with you — that within a two or three block radius of where his mother still lives in Norristown, he is probably the only lawyer. Not because he is smarter than the kids he grew up with. Because he had opportunities they didn't, and he asked for help. Listen on Spotify: Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@pioneersofpossibilitypod #PennsylvaniaPolitics #AkbarHossain #GovernorShapiro #ImmigrantStory #Bangladesh #PublicService #PolicyAndPlanning #AmericanDream #MuslimLeaders #FirstGeneration #Norristown #DiversityVisa #I95Collapse #Pennsylvania #PioneersOfPossibility This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit pioneerspod.substack.com [https://pioneerspod.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]
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