Their Hispanicization of One (Los Angeles)

- an excerpt, in progress

The deepest shades of her white, with translucent eyes and longish wheat blonde hair. The richest shades of his black, with soft masculine curls and eyes to stare forever into. This is half of me, the other half taken from the sands of faraway make believe lands, with distant languages that have no use for simple new-world letters but that we still study so as to never forget. These worlds melt into shades of my brown. Of their brown, of our brown. A shade of brown that makes up fifty-seven percent of this cities population. A brown that another fifteen percent of this cities population considers white...but will always be brown. But brown is not a color, unless we've been forced to wonder who we are and where we're from...and when we're from. Brown is not a color, unless the black, white and gold disappear into shame. Brown is not a color, unless we choose to let those other shades of white eclipse any remnants of our courage and life rooted in this lands history. Brown is not a color, unless they tell us it is.