Piri Thomas was a Black Latino of Puerto Rican and Cuban descent who grew up in the Spanish Harlem neighborhood of New York City. His writings anticipated the Nuyorican movement, a flourishing of artistic expression beginning in the late 1960s and 1970s by Puerto Ricans in New York. His memoir Down These Mean Streets became a bestseller in the United States. In this excerpt, the author wrestles with what it means to have dark skin in a mostly light-skinned family and illustrates how difficult it was for him to find his identity in a family that refused to acknowledge his African heritage.