Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg dines with Somali refugees in Minneapolis

“You are a powerful reminder of why this country is so great,” he said of his hosts. 

By Tim Harlow Star Tribune

Flanked by Somali women in their Hijab, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg marked the end of the holy month of Ramadan by eating his first Iftar dinner.

Zuckerberg posted a photo on his Facebook page of the Thursday night dinner with Somali refugees in Minneapolis. He thanked his hosts for their hospitality and for sharing their stories of triumph and struggles with relocating to their new land.

Zuckerberg asked one man who spent years in a refugee camp told if America felt like home. The man responded simply and profoundly, saying “Home is where you are free to do what you want. Yes, this feels like home.”

The response touched Zuckerberg, who called the man’s answer a “beautiful tribute to America.”

“I left impressed by your strength and resilience to build a new life in an unfamiliar place,” he wrote. “You are a powerful reminder of why this country is so great.”

The Minneapolis visit is part of a yearlong national tour by the Facebook CEO, which has so far included an Ohio visit with Trump voters, spending time with a Wisconsin dairy farmer, and visiting a high-achieving high school in Chicago. On Jan. 3, Zuckerberg posted about his challenge for the year, which was to “get out and talk to more people about how they’re living, working and thinking about the future.”

His message about the Minneapolis dinner has garnered more than 219,000 reactions and been shared more than 15,000 times.

One commenter lauded Zuckerberg saying “if every one in the world had your [beliefs] the world would be a better place … but in the mean time thank you for making us closer through Facebook.”

SOURCE:STARTRIBUNE