New York City is 9% Muslim and has a Muslim mayor, which scares a lot of people, most of whom don't live here. This afternoon on the train ride home (air-conditioned, thank god), I see an Arab-looking girl in a headscarf and a long, conservative dress chatting animatedly with her friend, a Chinese-American girl (New York is 15% Asian) in shorts and a tank top. As far as I can tell, neither one of them mentions Sharia or jihad; instead, they seem to be looking at pictures and arguing about which boy (I assume) looks cutest. They address each other as "bro." A Caribbean woman enters the car, chatting on her phone. She is heavyset and middle-aged, with dyed orange hair. She sits down and gets off the phone as the train leaves the station. Next stop, another middle-aged black woman, more conservatively dressed, sits down next to her. She's reading "Kin" by Tayari Jones (an Oprah Book Club recommendation). (New York is 20% black, about 1/3 of those from the Caribbean.) At the same time, a white father and daughter come in. People scrunch aside so they can sit together. He starts to read a picture book to her, but after a bit, she insists she can read on her own. He pulls out his own book. (New York is 31% non-Hispanic white.) A few stops later, a Hispanic man gets on the train with a guitar. Oh no! But it turns out he's pretty good (often not the case), I enjoy his plaintive ballads about love or something. I give him a dollar, and he says "Gracias." (New York is 29% Hispanic.) There's one annoying drunk dude, an older white guy. I assume he's drunk and not crazy or homeless because his clothes are nice and he's clutching a phone, but he seems on the verge of passing out, repeatedly bending over slowly until another lurch of the train wakes him up and he straightens. The dad with the daughter looks alert and peeved. Understandably! I get out at my stop, along with the drunk guy, but I take a different set of stairs to avoid dealing with him. Then a short walk from the station in the sweltering heat, with a brief stop at my Yemeni bodega (more Muslims!). Finally, I pass a Cuban-run barbershop with no one getting a haircut, and a couple sitting outside (the owners, I assume) listening to salsa. I get home and turn on the damn AC, safe once more from assault and/or bad serenades.