When someone talks Spanish to them, their eyes light up. It affirms the Spanish culture in these children. I really believe in honoring the culture and language from where they are from.

We wanted a fresh set of eyes. We wanted someone who didn't know the culture. We didn't want someone who was a big aficionado to do this. Everything he is experiencing is new and so that he's experiencing it as I am or the majority of people on the street. You're going to see it through the eyes of someone who wasn't familiar with it.

I remember the rules, rules that were never spelled out but every woman knew: Don't open your door to a stranger, even if he says he is the police. Make him slide his ID under the door. Don't stop on the road to help a motorist pretending to be in trouble. Keep the locks on and keep going. If anyone whistles, don't turn to look. Don't go into a laundromat, by yourself, at night.

I think about laundromats. What I wore to them: shorts, jeans, jogging pants. What I put into them: my own clothes, my own soap, my own money, money I had earned myself. I think about having such control.

Now we walk along the same street, in red pairs, and not man shouts obscenities at us, speaks to us, touches us. No one whistles.

There is more than one kind of freedom, said Aunt Lydia. Freedom to and freedom from.

The children of America have seen with their own eyes that liars can win and cheaters can prosper. They know that our nation will accept venal behavior and, in some cases, reward it with tremendous wealth and power. So why wouldn't they lie, cheat and steal?

Ophthalmologists across the state commend optometry for stepping forward with ophthalmology to ensure that Oklahoma school children have healthy eyes.

Children were vehicles for passing things along. These things could be kingdoms, rich wedding gifts, stories, grudges, blood feuds. Through children, alliances were forged; through children, wrongs were avenged. To have a child was to set loose a force in the world.