(NYTIMES) - For many years I lived across the street from Stuyvesant High School, Manhattan's elite public school, and I would sometimes get a ride from the father of one of the students. He was a cabby from Pakistan, a man who liked to strike up conversations with passengers. Usually we talked about two things: his pride in his academically gifted kids (another child was at Cornell) and his dismay at the state of affairs in Pakistan.

Eventually, the child at Stuyvesant went on to another elite university and I saw less of my friendly driver, and then I moved out of the city. But I've been thinking about him again in connection to the two best things I've read about immigrants in recent months - and what both say about our never-ending debates over "American values".