As Beto awoke one morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his futon into a gigantic cockroach.
"What's happened to me?" he thought. In his native land down south, he had been a person — if at times underprivileged due to his nikkei status. So, years ago, he "repatriated" to Japan, attracted by promises of better milk and honey. Yet now he felt even more marginalized by the locals here, who called themselves "people" yet treated him at times like he was an insect.
Beto scurried off to work, where people shied away and refused to sit by him in the train cars. But as the end of the line approached, the coach filled up with fellow cockroaches, and people stopped paying attention.