Reflective Essay: The Garcia Girls

     The cover of a book cannot determine its true meaning and the story inside. The book, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez. This book is very mysterious and the plot is often unclear. Looking at the cover of the page, you will probably think that this is a easy book to understand, but as you flip through every page, the story will become unclear, and your mind will start getting puzzled. This book can be understandable through concentration and imagination of the stories. Julia Alvarez's writing style shapes her story along as she incorporates symbolism.

     Julia Alvarez writes her story in chronological order from the present to the part. This is the part that makes her story very confusing to understand and you will never know what comes next in the story. The first vignette does not reveal what happens in the story, so you need to read further to discover the Alvarez's purpose. You can't really predict what happens in the next part, which is kind of tricky. If you finish reading a vignette, you will need to go back and relate the parts back from the last vignette and then the meaning comes alive. This book is written very creatively and her use of reverse chronological order makes readers confused most of the time, but I think her purpose is that a book is not only to be read once. Alvarez wants us to read closely and understand what she is trying to tell the reader.

     This book has weaknesses which makes the reader confused most of the time. The fact that it is written in chronological order is a weakness of this book because this leads off to many assumptions, and it surely made me quite confused. Another weakness about this book is about how she addresses the characters. The nicknames of the characters makes it confusing about who she is talking about and names for the characters often change and you will need to know each person's real name and their nicknames to not get confused. For example Yolanda is addressed as Yoyo in this passage, "This was Yoyo's time to herself, after she finished her homework, while her sisters were still downstairs watching TV in the basement," (Alvarez 136). Yolanda's name is written as Yoyo and you might get confused with who Yoyo is if you don't know their nickname. The abundance of characters in the book also makes it extremely confusing because it is usually not constant and it will change to another point of view without noticing. Other than the challenges that makes the book confusing, there is also good points to her writing.

     Alvarez uses symbolism a lot to explain her purpose of the essay. Symbolism is used as you read along each story and it is up to you what you think that really means. When she uses symbolism in the beginning of her essay, for example the guavas that she craves for, "Yolanda keeps an eye out for guavas. Piled high on wooden stands are fruits Yolanda hasn't seen in years: pinkish-yellow mangoes, and tamarind pods oozing their rich sap, and small cashew fruits strung on a rope to keep them from bruising each other," (Alvarez 13). When at first when you read this, you might not think that guavas represent anything, nor the other foods that she saw, but as you read further on the meaning will start to come up. Guavas are used to represent her home in the Dominican Republic. She left her home when she was little and she is starting to forget the place that she grew up as a little kid. The guavas are used to help her remember the past and the days that she had spent in her home; to help her recover her memories as they are fading away. The other food that she sees around her represent the foods that she has not seen for such long time as she has spent her times in America that her taste of them is starting to come back. Such a small things as Guavas would have so much meaning and by examining the parts that build up each part, it will become more understandable.

     Each and every part of this book has a purpose to it, and each story adds onto a time-line that connects each story together. Each of them has a connection to each other and because it is written in reverse chronological order, this is more challenging to understand. Don't look down on this book just because it is written in chronological order because it is not as easy to understand as you think it might be because the stories skip around going backwards. Julia Alvarez wants the reader to read this book over and over again. This book is not meant to be read once and this is probably her point in writing the book in reverse chronological order. She wants you to connect the events together when you read this book again because then you will know what happens and which vignette lead to this plot or problem.

     This book is mostly about the four daughters and how they grew up as adults in the American society and adjusting to their surroundings. I thought that they each had many struggles when they moves on and each of them lives a different life. The outcomes of their struggles in America often relate to how they grew up as kids and their lack of experience in the world outside. Each of the girls path is different and each of them has a story to tell you; this is for you to find out.

     For me the themes for this book include innocence, sexuality, and the dominance of men. The girls innocence in society often leaves them to be innocent about the culture and the people around them. As kids, they were not told about such things about society, so they often struggle through problems with their relationships with men. For this book, I also noticed that the men takes a lot of control over the women and the period of the story is still in the past, where women is still struggling to stand up for themselves. The daughter's dad will have a lot of control over the family and the daughters actions of what is right and wrong. There are lots of themes to be unraveled in this story, and it is for you to find out the rest.

     This is a really great story when you understand Julia Alvarez's true intentions that she lead us up to. The story of four girls and their story line from the Dominican Republic to the American culture.

The Garcia Girls: Symbolism

     The ending has finally arrived, or the beginning of the whole story. I thought the ending of the book was very confusing and I didn't understand the part where she says, "There is still times I wake up at three o'clock in the morning and peer into the darkness. At that hour and in that loneliness, I hear her, a black furred thing lurking in the corners of my life, her magenta mouth opening, wailing over some violation that lies at the center of my art." (Alvarez 290). I think this might mean that the mother cat is still haunting over her. I think that this symbolizes how she has lost the bonds to her home and wasn't able to find her own roots. The feeling of leaving the Domestic Republic and adjusting to the surrounding around her just frightens her. This was the part that I don't really understand because the last vignette kind of goes back to her present life and isn't the book going in chronological order. This was something that really confused me.

     I think that symbolism is used greatly in the beginning and the end of the book to explain the events that has happened. Especially in the ending where the kittens incident occurs. Yolanda finds the kittens in the shed without their mothers. I think the kittens has a meaning to this story and it symbolizes the Garcia girls and how they left their homeland; just like how the kittens was left without their mothers. Yolanda names one of the kittens and its name was Schwarz. She was taken away from their mother by Yolanda as it represents how they got taken away from their homes. When Schwarz was wounded, it shows that the girls had a hard time adapting to the American culture suffering through many difficulties on the way. When Schwarz gets lost and could not return to the coal shed, it shows that when they girls came back to their homes as adults, they were not able to find their roots back as it states in the first chapter. I think the symbolism of the kittens kind of shape the whole meaning of the whole book and how they adapted to the American culture.

     I think that there is more meaning to this book than I have right now. I think that if I really want to get the whole meaning of this book, I would have to read it over again because since I kind of know the beginning, I have to connect her history and past together to get her true meaning. I think that this book is intended to be read again to be fully understandable, and it tells readers that books have a big story behind it, and you will only discover the secrets when you pay attention to the details.

The Future

     What does future mean? What is the future that awaits us all? I have been thinking about my future recently and thought that there is no answer to what that will await me. There is no way I would know what my future will be like, for I have to decide that myself. For every decision that I make in life, there will be a result to things. No one can really change what they have done or go back to the past and start over again. We will also have to look at the road ahead and make better decisions.

     There are something that I really regretted. Things that I feel that I should have done better, but there is no turning back. I have to create a new future and everything is depended on what decisions that I make. Although we can't predict what will happen in 20 years, you could start creating it by every step we propose. If we make bad decisions in life, it would lead of to a bad future, but we can always change out decisions change that around. We decide our future ourselves and no one can do it for us. Everyone has a different road to follow, a different dream, a different goal, and a different inspiration.

     I have started to making a new decision in my life that will lead me to be successful. I have to be successful in school and my education to go to a good college. If I want to go to a good college, I will have to try my best in accounting for all my grades and keeping my studies up. I think that these are the decisions that I should make right now. For the future ahead, I will decide on that later. Until then, I will focus on what is ahead of me.

    I think the meaning of life is to experience failure at one point and learn from it. Nothing can stop you if you once failed, you can always stand back up and start a new day and be successful. That's what make life great. If you failed, it doesn't mean that your future will be bad, it will just mean that you need to try harder. Nothing can be decided right now, we will just have to wait till the time comes.

Response Post: What is Success?

     Recently, I have noticed that I will need to change my study habits in ASTI to be successful. I feel terrible about my grades and for every time I fail something or not get a A, I would think that I am not doing good enough and that I will need to better the next time to boost my grade up. I agree with what Andy Lau's blog and the thoughts that he made about success:

"Success means many things to people. To me success describes a positive result or wished-for ending through the achievement of goals. The key to success lies in hard work and perseverance. Ultimate success in life can only come from hard work."

     I agree with Andy a lot in this post and I found myself relating to his struggles. Success means a lot to me and my future. It also means that I did really well in something that I started. My sophomore year has gone really hard and I thought that I am not very successful. I am overwhelmed by stress from the hours of homework, essays, and test that I have been receiving. I don't know why, but my grades started to drop to a B and I was really struggling. I think I need some help with my work and that I should go to tutoring at my advantage. I felt very disappointing at the effort that I have been putting in and that I was not doing good enough. To change this, I think that I will have to learn to manage my time and find help.

     Success doesn't always mean getting a A. I feel that it also means improvement in the work that you did. If you put a lot of effort in something, I think that means success. If I changed my grade from a C to a B, I would think this is success because of improvement. Success doesn't mean you have to be perfect in everything, but rather how much time and effort that you have put to do something.

     I don't think I have been improving much in ASTI, and my grades are turning to B's. I am struggling greatly in PreCal, and Anatomy & Physiology, and History. Although I am having passing grades in these classes, I think that I need a lot of help in these subjects. I found out that I need a better way to study for exams or test because my test scores are bad. These habits of mines will need to change and I will have to study in my weekends and take away my free time. Organize my time in studying and find help. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by the amount of test what we have for a single day. I would get confused about which subject I should study more and which I should study less. The answer is that I need to study both of them really hard until I can understand it fully.

     Success means hard work and I want to see the results to the changes I have made in my habits. I feel that to be successful, it would always mean that I have to put extra work. Success is really important to me right now and getting good grades mean greatly to me even though my parents don't care. I have to decide the future myself and how much effort that I need to put in school.

The Garcia Girls: The Struggles

     After reading the second part of How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, I noticed lots of struggles that Garcia girls were going while they were adjusting to the environment around them. It seems as if all the girls are going through the same turning point. In a way, they go through a point in the story where they experience innocence. They would be stuck through confusion and left clueless about their surroundings. The second part of the story really explains what happened when they moved to America and the event that occur as times goes by.

     One of the struggles that I noticed between the Garcia Girls is the struggle with their English. In the third vignette, "Trespass", Carla struggles with English; it act as a wall between her and the situations that she faces. In this vignette, Carla is disturbed by the boys around her and was almost harassed. They would tease her for her looks and her English pronunciation. Even though Carla would ask them to stop their abuse, Carla lacks the English to protest and defend herself from them. She wasn't even able to tell the police what she has seen happen, which leaves her unprotected and isolated from her community. It seems as if English has grabbed her away from the world which she is not able to so anything. In this vignette, Carla also goes through this moment where she kind of loses her innocence to her surroundings and situations that she surpasses.

        In this story, I think the males have a lot of domination over the females. In this period of time, I think that makes still holds the power and they still control the females around. An example from the story would be that Yolanda's father teared up her speech because he thinks that it would be a disgrace to his family and that she wasn't ready to do it yet. Another example would be how Manual controls over Sofia and doesn't allow her to do anything. I think the father takes a lot of control over his family and tells what they should do and should not do.

      This thought came up as I start to notice the Garcia Girl's reaction toward a new community. I think when we all move to a certain place, we would feel that we would not belong. Mostly people will feel lost and insecure about their safety. This was how the Garcia Girls felt. I think I am starting to understand their reactions and life in America as I have experienced this before in my life. There were struggles adjusting to the surrounding around me, but it took a long time for me to feel like it was home again. I think that the culture shock that the Garcia Girls go through leads into many struggles. I hope that I would discover the answers to this story and have a full understanding of it as I finished the last section of the book.

Response Post: Autumn

Although autumn is not my favorite season, it is second next to spring. Even though autumn might not be my first, I agree with how Crystal describes autumn. In Crystal's blog, she wrote:

"It is a time when the weather finally begins to cool down after a hot and humid summer. Autumn invokes a relaxing feeling, probably partly due to the typical landscape scenes associated with this season. When one thinks of autumn, one would think of brightly colored leaves slowly cascading down from trees, flooding the floor with red, orange, and yellow tones. I think that these landscapes are primarily the reason why I like autumn so much. During these days, I feel like doing nothing else but curling up with a good book or taking a walk down the park while listening to relaxing music."

     I think the reason I like autumn is because the weather is neither too hot or cold. It is also mainly because of the beautiful landscapes there is. Although not much happens around the bay areas because the leafs just fall down without really changing their colors, there were places that I visited that showed a very relaxing view with the change of colors. Autumn is like the end of the rainbow for me. Where my thoughts wonder around like the leafs that fly by one by one. Autumn guides me through relaxation and the comfort to read a book.

     I can't wait for winter even though it might be freezing cold. I really want to be able to see the snow on day because I have never really experienced  snow or even touched it before. It is very sad and I hope that I would be able to experience this one day. Winter seems so cozy to me that I would hibernate in my bed and sleep for hours. Since New Years is in winter, it is my favorite holiday because I get to spend time with my family members. Winter is quite fun because we can warm ourselves up with hot chocolate and stay next to the heater and get warm.

Our Appearances

     Does our image really matter that much in our lives? I think that we are too focused in our appearances rather than our who we really are. I started to realize that most of us care about being liked by others around us or wants to be praised for their looks. In Mrs. Corbally's class, I  have learned a lot about the feeling that people have for their image. I was really surprised when I watched the videos about being too fat or people that are suffering through anorexia thought so much about their weight. It gave me a whole different perspective of this matter that I have never thought about.

      I think that it is not largely their fault that they think that way. It is usually because of our culture and how we judge people. I don't blame people that want to be skinny just to fit in. I think I kind of understand how they feel, although I have never went through this experience before. I think that the most important thing that I need is believe in myself. I don't have to look like the other kids and I am very proud of that. If no one likes me for who I am, it doesn't really matter because if I like myself, that is all I need. I think that people are going through this major problem because of judgment and the circumstances we are looked up to.

      Our community is filled with people that think about this everyday. They would either look at the mirror and say they they are "ugly" or "fat" about themselves even though they are already gorgeous. To me I don't think that appearance matters a lot to me and I would not judge someone without getting to know them first. I don't think people like you just because you are skinny, but rather it is your personality that really matters. Everyone is beautiful in their own way. We should never give ourselves put downs that make us feel bad about our body or even ourselves. I feel very sad for the people that feel that way about themselves and I want to tell them that you look fine the way you are.

     If you are fat and you want to loose weight so that you could be liked about others, I am not stopping you from doing it, but are those people that praise you and become friends with you really like who you are. Or they like how you look. We would all change our looks slowly, by just eating healthy. Starving ourselves is not a very healthy part of a diet. Well, to some up what I sad, we all should be happy about who we are and not worry so much about our appearance. If you are one of them that want to manage their weight, you can do it by just eating healthy and exercising. I think that there is a reason that people care so much about their appearance and I am not here to stop them. I want to understand more about this situation and share out my feelings.

The Garcia Girls: Part 1

     The book, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, by Julia Alvarez is written in a unique way. Being written in chronological order, I found it very fascinating to read because you will never know what is going to happen next. It tells a story from the the present to the past which is very interesting to read because you would want to know what lead up to that event and why this started to happen. Even though it was difficult to read, I can't wait to discover the connection they have.
 
     I was quite confused when I started to read this because of the way they addressed the characters. At first I get confused about who they are talking about in the story because they don't really state it. Julie Alvarez book leaves many gaps and details out. This reminds me from the book called The House on Mango Street, but I was less confused in that one because it is not written in chronological order. They both include vignettes about stories in their life which were very fascinating to read. Usually when things are written in chronological order, the introduction will guide you through the story, but Julie Alvarez doesn't really include a introduction that gives clues about what the book is about.
 
     Other than the confusion, the book includes clues about how each story connect to each other. I started to discover about how each event lead to the other and why the four sisters are struggling through so much problems. Each of the four sisters is very different, but they all still are similar in a way. It seems as if the sisters are struggling with their partners and they would always break up. I would wonder why this is the reason and is it because of the way they grew up. Then I started to wondered if the surrounding that they grew up on affect their lives and the problems they are going through. I am starting to unravel the details that they include and how they support each and vignettes. In conclusion I though that this story has become more interesting and I can't wait to read the next part of the book.