I live on Cabrini Boulevard, named for Saint Frances Cabrini, the patron saint of immigrants. It's kind of an ironic street name; there are quite a few immigrants here, like anywhere in New York. But this Yuppie-rich area has introduced me to a new sub-sector of American society: Immigrant Yuppies.

"It's a pretty good neighbourhood," said Max, a fellow tenant, when we met in the laundry room last weekend. "Except for the damned Yuppies. They're everywhere around here."

I'm not a big fan of Yuppies, myself, but in my experience they have good taste in food and attract nice shops. Likewise for immigrants of all origins, whose grocery stores and restaurants make for good dining, if not more.

It's a pretty bad time for immigrants in America, all told. If this space ever goes silent, you'll know to light a candle for me - I've become one of the disappeared. But New York has remained supremely tolerant, despite everything. And besides, I'm white. So the skepticism only sets in after people find out I'm a foreigner.

Still, I think I share the paranoia of most foreigners in America today. With reports of the thousands of people rounded up by the FBI in the past month, there comes a certain feeling that one should watch what one says in front of strangers as well as on the phone or even in email. I admit I have a bit of Hollywood in my subconscious and worry that uttering a few keywords in casual conversation will bring black helicopters down upon my low-rise building, to whisk me away indefinitely.

Which brings us back to the Immigrant Yuppies. I most certainly heard Spanish spoken in a Catalan accent in front of one of the ritzy co-ops up the road - isn't there a Catalonian separatist movement? And there are innumerable residents of East European origin - former Communists, I reckon - living in the area, not to mention the Puerto Rican community, who have campaigned repeatedly for their freedom from the colonial American government. Perhaps these people work for the United Nations, but what if they are all arms dealers and foreign agents? Here I sit in the thick of them, time ticking away on my freedom.

Someone has been watching too much television. I'll just have to trust the Department of Homeland Security and go about my daily business. My neighbourhood is peaceful, and all signs point to the peace-loving nature of my fellow residents above those of, say, Texas. I'm safe here. This area is too rich in both diversity and harmony for something foul to be brewing.

Yuppies; Immigrants; time to discard these tags of social denomination. Even I know that from time to time I'm thought of as Gringo, or Low-Life. As long as we keep thinking of others as outsiders, I'll continue to clamber around like the karma chameleon - my not being American disguised by my accent and betrayed by my thoughts.

It's the kind of cycle that adds to the overall weirdness of my American experience so far. I arrived the first weekend of September and with a beginning like the one I had here, I often wonder what to expect for an end.