Summary

In Part One, "Brown Girls," the first person plural narrator introduces themselves as a group of brown girls living in the outskirts of Queens, New York with their families. The girls spend time "on stoops made of brick" (3). Italian boys call to them from the street. Their grandfathers tend their gardens and their brothers smoke cigarettes.

In "'Brown,'" the girls are "the color of . . . root beer" (5). They resemble other brown things, too. No matter the shade of their skin, they are "still brown" (5).

In "The Dregs of Queens," the girls’ hometown is intersected by a "central road nicknamed the 'Boulevard of Death'" (6). The street is lined with shops and advertisements. There are fast food restaurants and cars "bubbling oil and smoke" (7). Takeout restaurants and laundromats fill the streets with sounds and smells. Their houses are "neat brick rectangles. Hidden, peripheral" (7).

In "Duties...