You who will be thrown one fine day into this kindergarten in Southern California You, the only child in your class with this brown skin Bat nose big ears slitted eyes wide feet and black black hair Who will ask why you feel so short and skinny dark and bony foreign strange and other, And later, your head on your mother's lap, asking--Why am I different, mom? You who will wear the clothespin on your nose and Scotch tape on your ears and keep out of the sun speaking only English watching Beaver and wondering whatever happened to the Cleavers' colored neighbors You who will become an insurgent native colonial subject little brown brother or science project or but always the childlike primitive in need of civilizing