The key issue in Mirta Ojito’s “Best of Friends, Worlds Apart” is not apparent at first reading. She shows the conflict between national heritage and racial identity for immigrants in the United States in the context of the friendship between two men from Cuba. It also highlights the divisive power of stereotypes and the formative influence of assumptions made on the basis of skin color. The two Cuban men, one black and one white, settle in Miami. Though they used to be good friends in their home country, they grow distant and mistrustful in the United States as they become more and more defined by race and the color of their skin.
Mireya Navarro’s piece titled “For Many Latinos, Racial Identity Is More Culture Than Color” begins with the 2010