If You Apologize Because You Are Afraid,

But Perhaps More Important, As Someone Wishing To Make A Comment Or Two About Contemporary Life And Values, I Don't Have To Dig Through Libraries Or Travel To Exotic Lands To Arrive At A View Of Our Modern Situation Refracted Through The Lens Of The Preindustrial World, Or The Uncommercialized, Unfranchised, Perhaps Unsanitized-and Therefore Supposedly More "authentic"-perspective Ofthe Third World. Very Simply, This Is Because That "other" World, As Alien As If Separated By Centuries In Time, Is The One From Which I Came

My Father Was A Tomato Farmer. There Is The Phrase That Says He Or She Worked Their Fingers To The Bone, Well, That's My Dad. And He Was A Very Good Man.

We Suffer Pain, We Hang Tight To Hope, We Nurture Expectations, We Are Plagued Occasionally By Fears, We Are Haunted By Defeats And Unrealized Hopes . . . The Hoplessness Of Which I Speak Is Not Limited.

I Lived In A Country Where I Couldn't Live Where I Wanted To Live. I Lived In A Country Where I Couldn't Go Where I Wanted To Eat. I Lived In A Country Where I Couldn't Get A Job, Except For Those Put Aside For People Of My Colour Or Caste.

Mine Was An Easy Ride Compared To Jackie Robinson's.