In this excerpt from his memoir, Rodriguez provides a stirring recollection from his adolescence: the first time he experienced racism as a result of being an immigrant in America. As he says, the experience "stays with [him] like a foul odor."

In this poem, a black woman carefully analyzes her interaction with a white waitress, whose actions, although civil, are smoldering with superiority.

Rosie Molinary describes how she felt as a Latina teenager in the United States, caught between disparate and unrealistic beauty standards.