This is a short story poem I wrote about life in suburbia and its changing ethnicity, using vivid word pictures and a little humor to share my feelings on the issues of an alien population being transplanted to an unfamiliar territory and trying to fit in and retain their sense of self at the same time.

                                                         Neighborhood

A new family moved in across the street.

They're Mexican.

I think they all brought their next of kin...Cuz I ain't never seen so many cars in one driveway spillin' out into the street,takin'every inch of curb space in front and sometimes even takin' my spot in front on this side.

Little bambinos, siblings maybe, cousins surely; anxious padres y madres watchingas they run and play in the yard near the front stoop and in the back, nervously eying meas I sit on my porch smoking, they, wondering whether I am safe or if I might try somethinglike luring one of them into my dark dungeon for unspeakable horrible tortures of rape and sodomy and bogeyman dismemberment-

Silently I shout out "I'm not a creepy man; I have children of my own-they just aren't here right now-they live with their Aunt and Uncle on the other side of the tracks because their mother and I couldn't get along... I shout it again and again, silently, hating their bonds of generation and tradition, wanting what they have.

Senoritas, hot and spicy with raven hair and full sensual lips rattling off staccato blurbs of unintelligible other-language I'll never understand fully. Sometimes they smile at me as they are getting into their car or me into mine on our way to separate worlds and I think to myself yeah I could be hers and she could fall for me. Such a sweet thought; it passes quickly as I take my place in my other world-Dad-driver for another day.

The senors, macho men to the core, strut in front of me, black hair gleaming, slick and wet looking, not aware that I know of their insecurities, their jealousy, their fear of me, of the unknown nuances of daily life in a society that looks down on them as "aliens" even when they  may have been born and raised and speak English just like one of "us"...machismo demands defending their territory and so they laugh me off and spar with each other; their words clashing like swords, swirling and flashing, dazzling syllables crashing into one another at a speed not usually heard on this street.

I hear noises I am not accustomed to hearing now, late night mariachi, banging, clanging,whining, machismo says you must know how to fix your own car and do your own body work inyour garage (luxury-my Papa always dreamed of owning a little bungalow on a quiet suburbanstreet with a garage for his little stash of tools) look at ME now with my compressor/paintgun/easyout/Snapon-Craftsman-Matco/Gripon toolshed spillin' out all over the yard; Ay Carrrremba, where the Diablo are those kids at with my ballpeen hammer...get away from the road!!! And gimme dat hammer Maria!!!

I am Flaco-skinny to them. It is funny to me because I know what they are saying when they all look at me and laugh and don't know that I know what some of their works mean. If they knew would they fear me or would there be a bridge between us instead of a divide? I light another cigarette and try to match caars to drivers but it's nearly impossible because they share and swap and borrow and barter and I lose track after a while.

I want to ask them how they came to be here, and where they were from, and who is related to whom, and thousands of other neighbor questions but I don't..am I afraid my machismo won't pass their muster? Or that they will pretend not to speak the lingo? I wonder, once the wall is down can things ever be the same? Do we want them to be here with us or like us do they just want to be,,,accepted...

I am jealous of their strong families, their traditional lives; long lines of genes racing towards the inevitablity of nativity... where will they be in a generation or two? I envy their ability to adapt in a society that calls them "low end wage suckers", "migrant laborers". If we examine our own roots will we see our Dutch and Irish and German and Jewish ancestors as "low end menial job-suckers or as pioneers...as alien invaders or weavers of a new tapestry of urban culture?

For now I am content to be alone with them. Someday maybe we will introduce ourselves and have cookouts and block parties and our children will attend schools speaking the same language and working together at the factories and farms and banks and hospitals...but until then we continue the same wary dance of culture clash with our arms at the ready and eyes averted, waiting for the other to make the first move.