I grew up in southwest Detroit, a neighborhood full of paradoxes. It was the most ethnically diverse area in the most segregated state in the country. My friends and I came from countries considered irrelevant to mainstream America: Ukraine, Malta, Cuba, Mexico and many others. The wealthy placed their factories there, out of sight and out of mind. They became the background for our play and a trap for our adults. But they didn't shape me in the same way that the values and spirituality of my friends and their cultures did. And that became...more