Sunday mornings, I walk a few blocks to buy the Times. Along my route, I pass the blacktopped park behind the elementary school, where immigrants from Mexico, Central America, and South America gather to play ball, a weekly ritual that contracts and expands in the number of its devotees depending upon the other dramas and demands of life that either push them to the park or keep them away from it. There are no rules of membership and newcomers are always welcome.

The morning sky was clear and the air held onto the cold of late late winter, but the chill has settled--if uncomfortably--into their warm-blooded bones. The guys were circling another around the rough court, playing a game that appeared to be a combination of soccer and Capoeira, their legs extended full length, kicked up to the height of their own hips in quick, graceful movements. There was occasional chatter, but nothing of importance. For these men, largely anonymous "extras" in the cityscape of more exciting stories of celebrities and stockbrokers --the delivery man darting his bike through yellow cabs and angry Jersey drivers eager to get home; the flour-dusted baker who quietly kneads and shapes dough all day; the dishwasher whose hands are permanently shriveled--there's no talk of their shared troubles: pressures to send money home to extended families who they tell they're doing well, errant wives or jealous girlfriends, children struggling through school, abusive bosses versus generous ones, rumors that la migra's been checking papers at certain places in the city. The language of Sunday morning is one of grunts and breaths and stories are told in movements, not words.