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Illustration by Jon Krause"SPEEK EENGLISH, TACO," THE GIRL with the giant backpack yelled when Maria asked where to find a bathroom. The backpack giggled as it bounced down the hall. It had been…

April 23, 2006|Douglas McGray | Douglas McGray is a contributing writer for West and a fellow at the New America Foundation."I'll be there in five minutes," Thi says.If you spend any time around…

Growing up in a Mexican-American family in Texas, Domingos two middle school aged sisters found a unique way of coping with feelings of inferiority. Domingo MartinezThis American Life11…

I was calling Sleets because I wanted to talk to the man who invented the high five. I'd first read about him in 2007 in a press release from National High Five Day, a group that was trying to establish a holiday for convivial palm-slapping on the third Thursday in April. Apparently, Sleets had been reluctantly put in touch with the holiday's founders, and he explained that his father, Lamont Sleets Sr., served in Vietnam in the 1st Battalion, 5th Infantry -- a unit nicknamed The Five. The men of The Five often gathered at the Sleets home when Lamont Jr. was a toddler. They'd blow through the front door doing their signature greeting: arm straight up, five fingers spread, grunting "Five." Lamont Jr. loved to jump up and slap his tiny palms against their larger ones. "Hi, Five!" he'd yell, unable to keep all their names straight.

By Jordan Conn

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