Those Who Don’t
Sandra Cisneros
Those who don’t know any better come into our neighborhood scared. They think we’re dangerous. They think we will attack them with shiny knives. They are stupid people who are lost and got here by mistake.
But we aren’t afraid. We know the guy with the crooked eye is Davey the Baby’s brother, and the tall one next to him in the straw brim, that’s Rosa’s Eddie V., and the big one that looks like a dumb grown man, he’s Fat Boy, though he’s not fat anymore nor a boy.
All brown all around, we are safe. But watch us drive into a neighborhood of another color and our knees go shakity-shake and our car windows get rolled up tight and our eyes look straight. Yeah. That is how it goes and goes.
Finding Common Ground
1. Compare the notes from your Quickwrite with Cisneros’s little reflection.
2. In a group, discuss and compare your responses.
3. With your group, talk about ways mutual suspicion and fear can be dealt with. Bring in examples from your own experience and from what you’ve learned from history and from stories—perhaps from some selections in this book.
4. Write down and present to the class at least one way your group feels people can learn to live together with more tolerance and respect.
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