Uzair Paracha, a 23-year-old member of Pakistan’s elite, was more American than he was Pakistani, his friends said. He almost always spoke English, not Urdu, the national language. He stayed up late at night in his parents’ comfortable Karachi home watching American movies on cable television. He shuttled between Karachi and New York, attending preschool in New York City and managing a gas station there during summer breaks from college in Pakistan. “I would describe him as everybody would, as an American,” said a college friend. “He had thoughts like an American, not a Pakistani.” His New York roots stemmed from his father, Saifullah Paracha, a Pakistani businessman who was a New York striver throughout the 1970’s. After running a travel agency and other small businesses in the city for eight years, he returned to Pakistan in the early 1980’s, raised a family and made a small fortune exporting clothes to Kmart and other American stores with an American partner. Full Story
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