I cannot remember when it happened. It wasn't all at once. I remember when I knew things had changed. I went to dinner with my mother. It was a new place near where my parents lived. She wanted to try it out. She said it was Greek food.
The restaurant was tucked in to a small business park that had once been a wedding gown shop. I remember it had been vacant for quite a while. The place clean and well lit. Narrow and not really inviting. We were the only White people in there. Eastern music was playing and the two brown men exchanged remarks in some foreign language while preparing our gyros.
We were the only people who actually sat down to eat. Other would come in, pick up an order and leave. All brown. All speaking another language and it certainly wasn't Greek. Neither my mother or I seemed really comfortable. In our way out I saw that next door another store front was being built. A Halal meat shop.
There was exactly one middle easterner in my highschool. He was deaf and mentally handicapped. I recall people still picked on him anyway. On out street there was a family I had never even seen. My parents referred to them as 'the Iranians'. They lived on the nicest house on the street and never came outside. There were a few houses behind them which we all assumed were more of them. Inhabiting a small quasi-compound. They had been there for 30 years or more. They were invisible. Now things had changed.
Three years later I came back to the same business park. I did not want anything to do with the 'Greek' establishment. On the far side a chain pizza shop offered a lunch buffet. There was one manager and one cashier working. Both middle eastern. They have taken over the entire property. As I walked out I decided I could never go back there either. I noticed with concern- the ballet studio nestled in between these arab shops. It had been there longer than I had been alive. I hope these parents are keeping a close eye on their daughters.
Rising Tides
