The colors have meanings. Terrible meanings, like the mark of Cain. Or the scarlet letter. My grandmother detested things like this, any sort of badge or button that defines a person. As a girl, I only thought she was being mean when she tore off the green shamrock I came home with on St. Patrick’s Day, when she tossed the little Mexican flag our Spanish teacher gave us on Cinco de Mayo into the kitchen trash bin. “Don’t wear those, Leni,” she said. “Don’t ever wear them.”
