President Trump is accelerating a trend that began before his election: Americans making Asia great again.

Of all the backpackers one sees in the Hong Kong International Airport, Americans are the easiest to spot: Backpacks often worn in front, traveling in packs of three and the unmistakable higher-decibel pitch, twang or “like.” I should know: I spent years as one of them, a New Yorker not known for his soft voice.

I’m not a backpacker anymore, but I’m still in Asia, which makes me a “repat.” I was born in India, spent my childhood in the UAE and emigrated to America, settling in Queens and later Westchester. My family became U.S. citizens in 1993. Even after graduating from Georgetown and working in New York and in think tanks and the Pentagon, I had no inkling — and didn’t until well into my 30s — that I would live again outside the U.S.

Yet for the past six years, I’ve been living in Singapore, the tiny city-state featured in Kevin Kwan’s hit novel and movie Crazy Rich Asians. This is the only home my kids know. Despite occasional sabbaticals in Europe or the U.S., it’s hard to conceive of us permanently returning “home.” For most of my life, I’ve been classified as an “Asian-American.” Now I feel like an American-Asian.

Thea Lee, president of the Economic Policy Institute think tank, is making waves on trade, the minimum wage and income inequality.

As leaves fell to the ground in the crisp Michigan fall of 1986, Thea Lee could be found knocking on doors. Lee was pursuing a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, but when her friend Dean Baker decided to run for Congress, she couldn’t say no to managing his campaign. Lee was itching to get out of the classroom and into the real world.

Though she’s become one of the most influential economic thinkers in Washington, she never did earn that Ph.D. “I got a little distracted,” she says with a laugh, her green eyes sparkling behind rectangular black glasses.

Instead, 59-year-old Lee has spent her career as a translator of economic theory for working people. It’s taken her from a foray into journalism (at the economics magazine Dollars and Sense) to two decades at the AFL-CIO union federation to the presidency of the Economic Policy Institute think tank starting last year.

Sunday’s Super Bowl featuring running back Sony Michel is a big day for the poverty-stricken nation of Haiti.

Do this on Sunday while watching the Super Bowl: Take your eyes off Tom Brady, the New England quarterback, and fix your eyes instead on the dynamo sharing the backfield with the 41-year-old star. That’s Sony Michel, No. 26. His legs will chop up and down furiously like a needle on a sewing machine as he tears through the middle of the Los Angeles Rams defense. Michel weighs just 215 pounds, but he runs as forcefully as a player 25 pounds heavier. Give him your spotlight for a play, or two. You won’t be disappointed.

Here is another reason to pay attention to the rookie Michel, who has rushed more than 100 yards six times this season. He has an immigrant’s ambition and willpower. The 23-year-old didn’t grow up in a family with football in its blood. Michel’s roots are in Haiti, but his parents moved to the U.S. before he was born. Soccer is king in Haiti, but Michel is among a legion of players of Haitian ancestry who — taught to grind and never relax — are succeeding in the NFL.