America: In search of the young and the restless

THE United States is far from being the City on a Hill as envisioned by its founders: High rates of crime and homelessness; gun control laws that result in frequent (indeed a seeming endless spate of) mass shootings; growing social-economic gaps.

But one cannot take one thing from the country: It has a large number of young and talented people, including many immigrants and their children, who have become the driving force behind much of the American creative spirit seen in its world-famous scientific institutions, its dynamic commercial centres, the Wall Street and the Silicon Valley, Hollywood and Broadway.

Indeed, if you are a young person growing up anywhere in the world, chances are that you occasionally dream about the prospects that could be open to you in America, a country that perhaps may not be generous to the elderly and the poor but offers so many opportunities to the young and the restless.