ny times articles

1. I started reading the article “Best of Friends, World’s Apart.” I thought it was very interesting to learn not only how big of an issue race is in America, but also how differently the issue is looked at by different countries. The writer says that in Cuba color does not define people. In the United States, on the other hand, the color of a person skin tells them where they will live, what they will eat, how they will dress and speak, and who they will be friends with.

2. The writer included a lot of detail in this story. Some examples that especially stand out in my head are how one of the boys received a pair of white sneakers from an aunt for his birthday. The principal of the school came to the boy’s house to tell him about the political consequences that wearing the “foreign” could bring about. Another detail that I remember was how the author described a meal that the boy had had four years prior- “breaded steak with rice and beans and fried plantains.”

3. One interesting story that the author included in the article was the night that Ruiz (a black man) began thinking of race in a totally different way. Ruiz, his uncle and a few other friends left a restaurant in a red Nissan. Twenty blocks from the restaurant they were pulled over by four police cars. The officers took out their weapons, told the driver and passengers to get out of the car and frisked them. One of the officers said that he followed the red car simply because there were “so many blacks” in it. After this, they were allowed to leave.

4. This was a very good article. Although it was long, it kept my interest and presented me with many ideas that I had never thought of before. I thought that reading the two different accounts of what it is like to immigrate to America was most interesting. While Ruiz has entered into a world that is constantly criticizing him, Valdes- a white man- has had a “seamless transition,” saying that everything he could need or want is in the United States. I may sound naïve, but it was unreal to read the experiences from these two men as they describe how the color of their skin determines the experiences they have every day.