“... are here: the fast-food restaurant where he worked, the smell of grease on his yellow uniform, Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys blaring in the background. Guillermo refuses to talk to the women, saying he’s busy working. They sit in a booth, and one writes the note that changes his life: ‘I am Mariana Pérez. My parents are ...”

“... candidate in 2008, charged that his rival was a lightweight international ‘celebrity’, like Britney Spears. To many white liberals, however, Obama seemed to guarantee instant redemption from the crimes of a democracy built on slavery and genocide. There is no doubt that compared to the ‘first black president’, who played the dog whistle better ...”

“... as a ‘typical teenager’; the test of typicality is how American her outlook is. ‘She loved Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys and Christina Aguilera. She would watch Oprah and Dr Phil in her free time, and one of her favourite films was The Matrix.’ When US troops arrived in Baghdad, Noor tells Walter, ‘everybody was so ...”