Poems of love, passion, defiance, protestation, tribute, and, above all, searching. J.C. Salazar searches for truths to understand the bonds that create humanity and brotherhood. He also searches for the broken links in the chain, breaks that prevent unity. "states of unitedness" suggests various levels of bonding among and between peoples, individuals, friends, lovers, families, communities, and the world itself. Centered in the "brownness" of his Mexican American background, Salazar explores identity far beyond ethnicity or race to grasp at every possible spiritual connection and bands of commonality that exist within various dimensions of our humanity.