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86 Los Angeles, 2007 I’m sitting at the Starbucks on the corner of 11th and Grand drinking my daily triple espresso macchiato, reading the LA Times, when a truck, lined with mirrors, stops at the red light and I see my reflection in a world where I seem at ease, the sun lounging on bare shoulders, the breeze weaving through dark curls, and my delicate long Indian print skirt elegantly spread about my ankles. I look coyly amused, as if I’m reading a cheesy romance in which the dashing, muscular, half-naked hero rides his stallion through daisy-dotted green hills towards the hut where his beloved waits, her heaving sighs threatening to pop her ample bosom out from a busty saffron gown. But the truth is that I’m reading about a possible U.S. attack on a country I still call home, and I’m sobbing inside, not for the bozos who cultivate facial hair instead of compassion and grace, but for my friends, my old neighbors, people who create, cook, clean and clamor for a living, people who laugh, love, and lollygag, just like we do, yes, you and me. Inside despair, I cry. Last night when my gentle friend drove like a madman getting us that much closer to death because the tattooed giant in the large black SUV was rude and fast, or when my friend’s husband, who marches in peace rallies, places 87 a pillow on her delicate face one night, his eyes crimson with booze and rage, or when a patron of the arts surprises me with: I consider you one of us, meaning white, I wonder if there is hope for any of us after all. The traffic light turns green and the mirror-lined truck moves on, takes with it the serene, dream-soft woman in the long, flowing skirt. ...

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