The Washington Post
July 22, 2001

By Cheryl Kravitz

I grew up in a blue-collar, hardscrabble neighborhood on Chicago's South Side. The film "West Side Story" was released when I hit puberty, and my friends and I fancied ourselves members of the Sharks, even though there wasn't a Hispanic among us. In fact, we were all Caucasian. We drew shark logos on our fathers' old undershirts. I saved money to buy the soundtrack and learned the words to every song. Recently I conducted a seminar on race relations and told a colleague about this. He asked in bewilderment, "Do you mean to say you were in a gang that sang Broadway musicals?" Yes. Still kind of am.