Brown Tribe

I was having lunch at McDonald’s with my coworkers and I was momentarily distracted. I marveled at the five of us. There was Dali, a pretty Dominicana, who thought it was cute when I sang along to the Spanish songs that we played over the loud speaker at out store.

There was the Colombian kid, John, who liked to write poetry. I had a blast with him when he took me to the Nuyorican Poet’s Café, where I read poetry on my 28^th birthday.

Next to him, there was Adane, who was part Italian and part English, a cool guy who I could check out the hot boys with and trade lip gloss secrets. And last, but not least, there was Angelique, a black girl from England, whose voice sounded like she should be on a Broadway stage.

I wondered how we were perceived by those around us. We were all the same shade of brown with curly hair.