Many Americans regularly and consistently complain, even despair about their country. In Resilient America, an immigrant analyzes his acculturation to the United States, leading him instead to qualified optimism.

UNDER THE WHEEL OF HISTORY is the memoir of my mother's dramatic journey through the 20th century. She was born in Russia in 1900 and lived through two revolutions and two World Wars. She died, in California, at the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Her memoir recounts a life of courage, discipline, spirit of sacrifice, and of imagination and initiative with which she managed to overcome the odds and perils of her mostly tragic trajectory.

In Resilient America, as a much-traveled immigrant (and long a citizen), I compare and contrast cultures and experiences from my earlier life with those in the U.S. At a time of growing national self-doubt, I find recurrent resilience and vitality in American culture. I observe that most complaints don't stand up to thoughtful, informed critique. Rather, a centered, enduring, self-renewing nation emerges, leading to tempered optimism . Observations of every-day, can-do Americans suggest that those doubting often lack a sense of their history. Their predecessors have worried since the...

Today, six out of ten Americans want no more immigrants - of any kind. This is not good for America. Optimism and hope drive immigrants. Pessimists don't emigrate. Immigrants come with energy, looking for opportunity, but not for entitlements or comfort. Coming from the outside, they see opportunities for innovation and they kindle renewal. They spur the economy by their hard work, ready assumption of risk and entrepreneurial instincts, but also by their very presence as consumers and tax payers. Because they relive the frontier experience which founded our society, they buttress and...