Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Garcia Girls Essay!

I chose to write about question 1 and 2. What was the author’s purpose in writing this book, and how can you tell? How well was this purpose achieved? For what audience is this book intended for, and how can you tell?

In the story of How The Garcia Girls Lost their Accents, Julia Alvarez tells the story of four sisters. She goes into depth and analyzes their life from the very beginning to the current stage in where they are in their lives told in the book. The author intended to tell the story of how moving to a new country can change the lives of many people especially those of a younger age. This story can appeal to a wide variety of audiences, but mainly, I think that Julia Alvarez is trying to appeal to a younger audience for the purpose of having them relate to the story she tells.

Julia Alvarez’s purpose in writing this book is to show the lives of four sisters and how they had evolved over the years. The main purpose of this novel is to show the changes that occur throughout every one's life. Everyone has their own destiny in their lives and it takes a lifetime to figure out how it will all work out. People must come face to face with a variety of problems that emerge when they grow out of the different stages of their lives.

The book, How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accent, is split into three parts where each segment is meant to tell the story of the girls from different time periods in their lives. For example, the first part of the book is told in present time. At this time, we expect the book to be told from the very beginning, but the girls are already grown up and they seem to be remembering how they had got to that place in their lives simply from looking back at their past. As we take a closer look at the story behind the book, we get to know more background information about the four Garcia sisters. As we read more into the story, we learn that the girls homeland is the Dominican Republic. By the end of the book, we come to know that the entire Garcia family was forced to move out of their homeland of the Dominican Republic to the new country of the United States. The girls learned how to become more Americanized after being raised in the United States for such a long period of time, “Yoyo suggested, thinking it would be nice to have a little pot to smoke when things on the Island got dull”. After straying from the life they had in the Dominican Republic, the Garcia girls started to act more like the girls that were raised in the States. From this, I can tell that the purpose of the author was to tell a story of the girls in a way that shows how changes are made when people are stripped of their past and are forced to make a new future out of themselves. In another sense, the girls had to make those changes in their life in order for their society to accept them. When the girls first arrived at the United States, they were being picked on because of their accent. Thus, showing how the title clearly makes sense. since one of the sisters, Carla wanted to survive in that society, she began to get rid of her cultural language, “The girl she had been back home in Spanish was being shed” (153). The entire migration left the girls conflicted with many aspects of their new lives. They were forced to change or rather better situate themselves with a whole different type of social environment. Them being teenage girls also had a negative impact on them. Their era of girls were so different from what they could have been back home in the Dominican Republic. Thus, that lead to a change within the girls live for the years to come.

Julia Alvarez’s purpose of her story was achieved. Although the book has its’ weaknesses when it comes down to the organization of the book, the story does achieve its’ purpose when its telling the entire story. The book tells a story of how change happens when a family is forced to move somewhere new.The story has a positive effect on the readers even if they do get confused with the arrangement of the books’ parts.  The audience intended for this book was for a younger range of people. I believe this to be true because the majority of the book was based around the girls at a younger age. Two thirds of the book discussed how the Garcia sisters were either young girls or when they were at the age of adolescents, “We took turns being the wildest,” (86) Usually when teenage girls are growing up, they go through a rebellion stage. This is a situation that occurs during every teenage girls life. It works well with this story because Julia Alvarez incorporates this aspect of a every young girls life in a way that reveals to her readers that this book was intended for a younger audience. In another sense, the story tell the struggle of the girls when they are forced to move to a new country. This subject is what would bring the audience in. Personally, books that have a lot of drama or the ones that tell a compelling story are the books that attract me and make me actually want to read the book. This book works to its’ advantage since it is all based around a central theme that shows the different challenges that come with living in a new environment. How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accent, is a story that mainly appeals to an audience that is around the same age that the Garcia characters were throughout the biggest portion of the book.

How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accent is a irresistible book that any reader would not be able to put down. The main purpose of this book is to tell the story about girls that change for their society after arriving to a new country from the Dominican Republic. It shows that a new country can change people in many ways. Not only that, but this book is one that appeals to an audience that understands what it is like to be in one of those girls’ position when it comes to dealing with an everyday teenage life.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Garcia Girls

In the final section to the book, How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accent, the story dates back to the very beginning. The setting is set back in their hometown of the Dominican Republic. This was all before the Garcia family was forced to move to the United States, but it is talking about how they got to be there and the reason behind their migration.
In the first chapter of this part, there are two men from the SIM, or the Dominican secret police, that are looking for Doctor Garcia, or the sisters’ father. It seemed as if they were going to be a problem and they turned out to be. The father was hiding in some closet throughout the house. Since the mother did not want the girls to be part of the trouble, they two oldest were sent to their aunt’s house. After the entire mayhem, the mother had told her daughters to pack up their belongings and one toy that they would take back to the States. And that was when I noticed that the entire story had led up to that point where they mention how they had gotten to the United States and for what reason.
In this final part of the book, we learn that the family had a lot of money since they live with maids in their house caring for them. Throughout the first two parts of the book, we did not know this since it seemed like they didn’t have enough money to get anything due to the fact that they were new to the country. Besides that, the book has a part in which the father had come back from a trip in New York and he had brought his daughters a present: a doll bank. Like all the other toys the girls got, they got bored with them. So Carla decided to give hers to one of the maids, Gladys, for no charge since she wanted it so badly. Although Carla did it out of pure generosity, it resulted in the maid leaving the house for not being able to be trusted.
Finally, the last chapter talks about a cat that had haunted Yolanda for a while. I learned that her past experiences are what inspired her artistic ambition.
Throughout the entire book, I have discussed on the theme of innocence in this story and I still stick by it. This final section of the book has proved that before moving to the States, the girls still held on to their innocence.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Oscar Grant Case

Since the police officer Johannes Mesherle only got the minimal jail time of two years, I do not think that justice was served at all. Honestly, I think this might be a case where the people had to include the issues of race in to it. The police officer was of course a Caucasian male and the victim, Oscar Grant was an African-American.

In this society it is still all about your race. Although there are arguments’ stating that people think that race-hating is over, I think it is not true. If we were to take a closer look at it, discrimination is still all around us even if it under the radar. This tragedy might count as an example to this hate.

The whole crime that happened on New Year’s Eve should have cost the BART police officer way more time sentenced to jail. The event that happened was still considered man-slaughter, and shouldn’t that mean that Johannes Mesherle should have gotten more jail time? I think that the only reason his case was not sentenced to longer prison time was because of the obvious reason: he is white and he is a police officer. All of this seems unfair to me. If the tables were turned and the man who was shot was white and if the man who shot him was African-American, then there is a probable chance that the man would have gotten a harsher punishment.

My take on this whole situation is that the legal system didn’t do enough to justify the man-slaughter of Oscar Grant. The response that was received by the police officer was not enough. Honestly, the excuse that he confused his gun for his tazer is completely ridiculous. The police officers are trained to know the difference between their weapons. Oscar Grant was on the floor handcuffed and defenseless. He was not doing anything to attack the police officer, yet he was killed for no justifiable reason.

A just verdict for me is to give Johannes Mesherle a longer jail sentence. If that happened instead of the minimal two year sentence that he was given, I think the riot would have not even gone down. The legal system really did not do a good job of serving justice in this case.

Love is Real

I am responding to Stan’s blog post about the Reality of Love

My take on the whole love scenario is that it is completely made up. It is just a state of mind that your brain tricks itself into believing is real… At this age you are guaranteed this feeling of "Love" eventually you are going to feel it one way or another. At this stage in our lives relationships are not meant to be everlasting, at this age relationships are just for the fun of it, or at least in the beginning they are. That relationship is still for fun…but really kids are interested in making out…But never in your life will love ever be real, it is just a state of mind. So you might ask "Why even get into a relationship if you are just going to get your heart broken?"

I really do have to disagree with Stan’s statement that love is completely made up and that it is just a state of mind. That is really not true. Yes it is true that as teenagers, we are thought to believe that love does not exist until later on in our lives. At this age, love is not supposed to be so close at our reach, but in certain circumstances, we are blinded by love and it does happen.

Relationships that start off at an early age sometimes can go both ways. Sometimes the person that you are in a relationship with might be the love of your life who you will end up with the rest of your life, and sometimes, that relationship was just too young and was just made up to have fun. Either way, there is no deniable reason that love could have been there. That proves that love does exist even if it sometimes doesn’t work in our favor.

I love where Stan says that kids these days are only really interested in making out. To be honest, he does make a good point. I guess you can say that making out is a fun thing to do at this age, but it’s not the only thing that we have in mind. You never know, maybe kids really do want to find love this young and that is not an impossible thing to do. I know from experience. I love my boyfriend and that has nothing to do with the factor of making out. I have found love at a young age and I really don’t see it as a state of mind since I’m living and breathing it right now.

Love takes up many forms, but that it is not a reason to say that it is not inevitable at this age. Love is real and it only takes for you to find the love of your life to know that it does exist.

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Garcia Girls part 2

In the second part of the book, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, the story got a whole lot more interesting. The first part of the book was set up in such a way that I did not really understand what was going on. The author jumps into the book in a way that makes it seem like we automatically know what is going on. By the end of the first part, I was still stuck at that state of confusion throughout the book. When I began to read the second part, it was dated back 20 years earlier. For that reason, the short stories were giving more background information about the Garcia family which helped a lot in understanding the book better.

In this section of the book, we find out about the first couple of years that the Garcia family was in the United States. Because the story was going backwards in order, the other chapters started off with the family first being in the state for a year. One of the sisters, Carla, was being harassed while she was at school by a group of white boys. They teased her mainly for the reason that she was a foreign student, but they also made fun of her because of the way her body was transforming. She was going through puberty which she was unaware of.  She was a target for as while until the group of boys got tired.

Another incident happened with Carla when she was walking home from school. The family thought that they lived in a good neighborhood, but they were somewhat mistaken. While walking home, Carla was being stalked by a man driving in his car. As the car approached her, Carla got nervous and then the man wanted her to come to his window. The main reason Carla didn’t want to go over there was because she didn’t want to speak to him in English which was a language she didn’t quickly grasp. Finally, the horror that happened was that the man was a pervert who had showed Carla his genitals. Scared, Carla ran home to tell her mother of the incident in which she called the police.

The main subject of this part of the story was to show the innocence of the family when they are newly arrived in the United States. The entire book is centralized on the theme of innocence. The first part of the book shows how all innocence was lost between the family. The second part of the book shows how the family still held on to that innocence and I predict that the final section of the book will show the beginning to everything.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Response to Vy's post

Teen pregnancies are a subject that our society has to be concerned about. In Vy’s blog about Teen Pregnancies, she claims this,

“In my opinion, Teen moms should not be given a show, it just shows that teenagers are able to get away with anything and are given a privilege to be on T.V. That does not teach anyone anything. It  causes a bigger problem because it give teenagers a reason to get pregnant so, they can make easy money by getting on T.V. Teen moms should just keep their business to themselves and take care of what they need like taking care of their kids instead, of caring about getting on T.V. In a way, they are using their kid and that is not fair on their kid behave.”

I agree with Vy’s claims about it being just ridiculous for MTV to air a show based on teen moms. I know that I do not have any say in how people live their lives and that I know that it is their choice for them to put their business out there like that on shows, but honestly, I feel as if Teen Mom and 16 & Pregnant are not good choices for a show. Yes I know that it does show their struggles with having a kid at such a young age, but at the same time, like Vy said, it gives off the impression that teenagers are able to get away with what they want such as having sex and getting knocked up afterwards.

I have noticed that nowadays, everything has been made into a reality show. Teen Mom and 16& Pregnant are just two of the many shows that are based on the specific details of a person’s life.

I honestly do not see why these teenage girls would want to have all their personal business out there like that. Personally, if I was in their situation, I would not want my life to be showcased like that. My life is no ones business just like these teenage moms. In my opinion, they should not have a show since it really doesn’t teach anyone anything. These shows are just putting these moms on blast when they dig deep into their personal lives that are AIRED ON T.V!

Teenagers These Days

My question is why do the adults these days think that there must be something wrong with the teenage generation now?

Usually, you will most likely see an adult say “What has happened to the kids nowadays.” They think that we have all changed for the worst. To them, we are so different to how they were back when they were our age. I think that the older people think that everything we do is wrong. Apparently to them, every aspect of what we do and how we behave is not right.

For example, our dating habits. In most cases, parents will not let their children start dating until they reach a certain age and some parents will not let their kids date at all. Most parents think that it is wrong and they just begin to imagine the worst of young couples even if they are not doing anything wrong. I guess that back in the day, kids used to be lonely since dating is so ‘wrong’.

Another example is the way our styles have changed over the years. You can say that our way of dressing has evolved so much from the past generations. Nowadays, for the females, its all about the skinny jeans and tank tops. For the guys, you will also see some rockin’ the skinny jeans or baggy jeans. For some unexplainable reason, adults do not like this. For the girls, they always say that “They shouldn’t be dressing like that,” and for the guys, it’s mostly always, “They should pull their pants up.” They will always have something to say about this and I don’t even know the reason behind their judgment.

Finally, our vocabulary is not really the best out there. I have seen on a regular basis where kids do not know how to complete a sentence without including a cuss word somewhere in there. On rare occasion, you can witness this sort of behavior occurring around an adult and if it does happen, they automatically get mad for our ‘bad mouth’.

Although our new generation of kids have changed a lot throughout the years, I do not think that we do anything wrong. In my defense, everyone used to be a teenager at one time or another. They should know that we just want to have fun and enjoy what is left of our teenage years before we become old like the adults. In some crazy way, the adults have to understand that time has changed and they should let kids live freely without any judgment for how we do things in our time.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents Part 1

How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent is the story of four girls living in America and of the stories of how they got there. The names of the four sisters are Yolanda, Carla, Sofia and Sandra. The book is separated into three parts that consist of many short stories. In the first part of the book, it is telling basically of how the girls are living their lives in the present.

In the very first chapter, Yolanda is the first girl that is being discussed. The setting of this short story I think is back in their home town of the Dominican Republic. Yolanda is visiting her family and they point out the obvious changes of her from how she is Americanized. They speak of the word antojos which in Spanish means, a craving for something food related. As a result, Yolanda goes on a search for her antojos which just so happens to be guavas.

In the next short story, the author talks about the other daughter, Sofia. In my perspective, Sofia is the wild child out of them all. Basically, it talks about how she had met this German guy named Otto back then and they would send letters to each other that spoke of their sexual nights. When the girls’ father had found these letters, he was furious because of the fact that the letters made him suspect that his daughter was no longer a virgin. As a result, the father had kicked his daughter out of the house and she went all the way to Europe in search of her man. Next, they had a party for the fathers’ 70th birthday. They were playing a game that didn’t end so well because of Sofia.

The next part of the stories is still just talking about the daughters and how they came to be what they are now. They all have had their problems in the past and the book is based purely on their lives.

So far, I am really confused about this story and what the main subject is. I think that the book does have a lot of potential to be a story that is interesting, but I do not think I will find that out until the end. The thing that confuses me the most about this book is the fact that it is written in backwards chronological order which sets that book up for confusion right away. All in all, I think that the more I read along, the better sense this story will make to me.