PHILADELPHIA – The past year has been very busy for Pennsylvania law student Akbar Hossain, meeting dozens and dozens of people for coffee dates to talk about his faith, Islam.

“There is a vacuum of information that is just not there, that the media continues to fill with misinformation,” Hossain told the Daily Pennsylvanian.

“That’s where I think the coffee dates can help.”

A month after President Donald Trump’s election, a driver told Hossain to “go back to [his] country.”

An American-Muslim whose family immigrated to the US when he was nine, Hossain responded with an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer where he wrote, “This is my country and I’m not going anywhere.”

He added in the article that he welcomed all readers to meet with him if they wanted to learn more about his background.

“The seat across from me at the coffee shop will always be open. That’s my promise,” he wrote.

Though facing bullying because of his last name and faith, Hossain sees himself as luckier than his peers.

“I surround myself with people who are accepting, but I don’t think that’s true for the majority of Muslims that live in the United States,” Hossain said.

“They are living under a microscope in terms of how they act.”

Hossain attended Franklin & Marshall College for his undergraduate degree on a full-ride scholarship and later received both the Truman Scholarship and the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship before coming to Penn to pursue his law degree.

As a law student, Hossain has worked to apply his expertise to causes he feels passionate about.

“Akbar is a committed advocate, and appreciates the importance of supporting legal advocacy,” Penn Law professor Sara Paeoletti, who worked with Hossain in the Penn Law Transnational Legal Clinic, said in an emailed statement to The Daily Pennsylvanian.

She praised his ability to “loo[k] for other outlets to help shift the messaging around immigration.”

Since his dream job is to run the Office of Immigrant Affairs for a local government, he hopes to continue to work with those seeking asylum and refugee resettlement in a pro-bono capacity.

“It’s just about being a good person,” Hossain said.  “The rest will follow.”