And lately fashion photographers, bored with Rome or the Acropolis, have ventured farther afield for the frisson of syncretism. Why not Calcutta? Why… - Richard Rodriguez

My parents had come from Mexico, a short road in my imagination. I felt myself as coming from a caramelized planet, an upside-down planet, pineapple-cratered. Though I was born here, I came from the other side of the looking glass, as did Alice, though not alone like Alice. Downtown I saw lots of brown people. Old men on benches. Winks from Filipinos. Sikhs who worked in the fields were the most mysterious brown men, their heads wrapped in turbans. They were the rose men. They looked like roses.

I am speaking of those years before the middle class took professional wrestling away from the working class and made of our morality play a mockery of ambition.

On the other hand I tell my true intimates that what I write is not intended for them. In fact I'd prefer they never read it. When I write, I'm talking to somebody I intend to never meet.