Garcia Girls Essay

I chose to write about the first question. What was the author's purpose in writing this book, and how can you tell? How well was this purpose achieved?

In the story How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accent, four girls are learning about the way they must live their new lives. The author, Julia Alvarez has many purposes for writing this book, but the overall theme was based around teenage girls and their struggles.

I think that the purpose of the author to write this story was to inform her readers about teenage girls. She wants us to be able to know the problems of typical teenage girls. She tells us of how the Garcia girls struggle within their new society. I can tell that this was the authors purpose because the whole book was based on the problems that the Garcia girls had to come to face with, “They were disclosing her secret shame: her body was changing,” (153). The girls have grown so much from when they came from the Dominican Republic. One of the many changes with the girls was their appearance during puberty. One of the sisters, Carla, tells people to stop mentioning the fact that her body was going through changes. This arises with a new problem for Carla that she has to go through. Carla is left with not being able to do anything since puberty and body changes are just a way of life. She has no control over her body and with the changes that she must go through. The author is trying to get the message across that a typical girl has to face a lot of problems throughout their life and her character, Carla, had to get stuck with one of those many adolescent struggles. Along with that, Carla will not be able to stop many more problems that come in everyone’s’ lives since most, we do not have control over them whatsoever. Throughout the entire story, Alvarez tries to get the point across that when the girls arrive at the United States they must come to face with a lot of problems including those with their body. Not only that, but she also wants to show that every girl has to face problems like this.

As the girls keep growing, the author shows her readers the many problems that these girls have as they are teenagers. One main problem that the girls have is men. Sometimes, a woman’s’ main problem has to be with men. Teenage boys usually become a matter of difficulty during a teenage girl’s life. The girls are either pressured into doing something that they do not want to do, or they let a man take over their lives, “What the hell do you have to make a list of the pros and cons of marrying me for?... Stop violating me I hate it when you do that,” (74). In one scenario, another of the four sisters, Yolanda, is in a relationship with a man named John. Yolanda is not even married with this man yet and she already has to fight with him so he knows that she can not be taken for granted. As stated before, men are a major part of a woman’s life and they play a major role with their interactions. How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent is just another example of this because a man in this story is having an affect on one of the sisters. Yolanda is put through a lot because of a man that is a huge part of her life. This brings down confusion on her and she is not so sure whether she wants to marry John anymore or not. Not only that, but John makes it seem as if Yolanda has her times when she is good and when she is not so good. This is shown when Yolanda is talking about her pros and cons. The fact that the authors purpose is to inform about women problems works well with her examples given in the story since they include struggles with either their body image or men.

Another factor of this story is the fact that they show how their lifestyle in their homeland of the Dominican Republic changed so much when they arrived to the United States. Their lifestyle in the Dominican Republic differs from that of the life in America and that is what causes the girls to change in order to fit into their new home in a different place. The girls went through changes since America is culturally different to the Dominican Republic, “The girl she had been back home in Spanish was being shed,” (153). As a result of the move, one of the girls admits to going through a change since arriving at the United States. Everything that the girls have had to go through has changed them to better fit their society. All the problems from men to a changing body image, to their family’s pass caused a difference in the Garcia girls. Another thing that had changed the girls was the fact of not being saints as much as their father thought they were. The sisters had to learn quickly about the lifestyle and how the American girls lived in that country. Thus, the girls started to sneak around and behaving badly behind their father’s back. In the end, the father found out about one of his daughters Sofia, not being a virgin. The truth had finally come out and then she was kicked out of the house by her father.

In this book, the beginning was the end and the end was the beginning. In the end, Yolanda wanted to keep a cat, but a stranger had told her that it could not survive without their mother. I think this is where Yolanda started to think. After she took the cat inside she started banging on the box to hide it from her parents. The cat and that scenario signify the girls and the fact that they tried to hide part of their lives from their parents. It is just a tiny flashback to show how the girls went on to live their live which was somewhat a mystery to their parents, especially their father.

Finally, the author’s purpose to writing this book is to show that moving form one country to another can rally change people. Taking away someone’s culture and removing them from their homeland can have a negative affect on people. The way a person lives is what can be the major change in their lives.

Short Sory Part 3

“Camel you are staying outside the whole period, I’m tired of you coming in late!” Mr. Fargher said.
Camel did not want to stay outside waiting in the rain for the whole period. So he decided to go to Starbuck’s. On the way to Starbuck’s, Camel sees Tramy. Camel started walking with her and asked her if she wanted to go to Starbuck’s with him. Tramy says yes and as soon as they started walking, she says, “Sham!” and trips him. Next thing you know, Camel’s face falls straight into a puddle of water. His whole white ASTI polo gets dirty and wet. Tramy then starts walking back to school laughing. When Camel came back to school, Mr. Fargher makes him come in class and throws the Starbuck’s coffee away. Camel gets mad, but does not say anything.
When we went to Mrs. Corbally’s class, we had a substitute. We all got to sit down where we wanted to. In the back, it was Jair, K.C, Camel, Rubs, Maxito and Tramy. Mario comes to ask Camel for a piece of paper, but as soon as Camel was going to give Mario the paper, he says, “Shhhhhhhham!” we all laughed. Then, Mario says, “Shhhhhhhham this!” and slaps him across the face. He slapped him so hard Camel turned black. We all started laughing again. Then we started to throw papers at Maxito. Camel tells K.C, “Hit him!” and K.C tells him, “Oh look at him!”, but instead of K.C hitting Maxito, K.C hits Camel on the back of the head with the paper. Camel thought he was cool when he really wasn’t. We all started laughing once again.
Suddenly we hear the substitute talking. He kept going on and on and Jair says, “What are you talking about?! No one ever knows what you are talking about! You are like a hungry Chihuahua who never stops barking!”
It was lunch time and we decided to go to the cafeteria again with Bossman and his sidekick. K.C asked him if he could drive his black on black Mercedes. He says, “Sure when you get your license.” We all got the same thing, cheeseburger with fries and a soda. When we get our order, we go and sit with Maxito and Peanut Head. We were all eating and then you see about five fries in the air straight to K.C’s head. They had just done a drive by on K.C. Then you see…
TO BE CONTINUED!

Short Story

Then out of no where, we see Maxito chasing a ball around. K.C says, “Look at my dog chasing the ball!”, “Hahaha!” we all laugh. Then we see a ball going towards K.C’s head. It barely missed. The person who threw the ball was Little Bee. She threw it because she was mad at him because he had stepped on her by accident, since she is only 4 feet tall. Next thing you know, we start to hear a voice. We did not know who it was. Then we, out of no where, we hear someone scream. K.C checks under his shoes and he sees Rubs under it. She is like 3 feet tall, so we didn’t even notice her.
“Give me a lap!” Sousa screams.
“Go home!” Jair says.
We were all running a lap. Because he thought it would be funny, Camel puts his foot out and trips Lion. Next thing you know, Lion’s face is covered with brown and green stuff (the ducks had left Lion a little surprise). Kristine was running so fast, she was running as fast as lightning, but then, K.C. throws the football and there goes Kristine falling down on the ground. Everyone laughed at her!
We were all done running a lap except for Chunky Boy. We all played what we were assigned to play and then after that, we headed for 6th period. In 6th period, everyone was hot and exhausted, so not much was done. We were outside the office where we usually hang out after school and then, we see Chunky Boy. She had barely finished running, I mean jogging the lap. She was sweating bricks and looked like she was going to pass out. Then, we all left her.
When K.C went home, he felt like someone was following him; he was really scared. He did not know who it was, but luckily, he got home safe. The next day K.C and Jair met at the cafeteria with other ASTI peers, but he did not tell them what had happened to him on his way home. K.C thought it was not a big deal and that he was just trippin’. Then 10 minutes before class started, Jair and K.C started walking back to school. Lucky for them, Mr. Fargher was not there yet. So they made it just in time. On the other hand, Camel came late to class and had to stand outside in the rain with thunder outside. And because Camel is not the smartest person, he did not bring a sweater or jacket.
“Camel!”
…TO BE CONTINUED

Garcia Girls

The third and final part to the book, How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accents, finally talks about their life back in the Dominican Republic before the family moved.
The first chapter all talks about how the family had to move to the United States. It was not really clear why the Garcia family had to even move, but they do.  While they were still in the Dominican Republic, something was going on with the father of the family. They were looking for him and then a man named Victor was there instead. Whenever a police came, there had to be trouble around, so the family had a code name for that. They had mentioned ‘tennis shoes’ as the code phrase. In the end though, the mother told her daughters that they had to pack up their stuff because they had to leave.
After that, the chapters talk about one part when the girls were even younger. In the Dominican Republic, the sisters had a lot of cousins, and there was one for each of the sisters. The only sister that got stuck with a boy cousin instead of a girl was Yolanda. This talks somewhat about how Yolanda was the one who went through a tomboy phase and how the aunts wanted her to start hanging out with the girls instead for a while. A situation happened in this chapter. The boy cousin that hung out with Yolanda had a toy that Yolanda really wanted to trade with. So she told him that she would give him anything for that toy that was a model of the Human Body. In return for the toy, Yolanda’s cousin, Mundin, wanted her to pull her pants down and to show him what was down there. When Yolanda finished, I think she felt a little ashamed since her cousin had said that she looked just like the dolls.

I think that was really the part in which Yolanda might have changed her image since her family wanted her to be around her girl cousins instead of being a tomboy hanging out around all the boys.
How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accent was a really confusing book, but in the end, everything made better sense to me.

Short Story

Once upon a time in Alaland, there were a group of boys who thought they were funny. They always had a joke to make at every time. One day, for example, Camel told Little Bee a riddle, “There was a monkey and a gorilla going up a coconut tree. Which one got the banana first?” of course knowing Little Bee, she said the gorilla, but since we all know there is no bananas on a coconut tree, she felt really not smart.

Now K.C told Chunky Boy a joke. The joke was like, “You have an ugly nasty bump on top of your neck.” She was trying to figure out what was it so she asked K.C what was it. He said, “It looked like a rotten sandwich and disgusting.” Then Chunky Boy asks, “What is it?” and K.C says, “Your face!” Now that joke was not that as nice, but it was really funny. Chunky Boy got mad and said, “Watch I am going to do something to you!”, but K.C ignored it.
   
Later that day, the whole class was on their way to lunch. It was K.C Camel and Jair. They were going to the caf to order croissants. They all got ham and cheese croissants with fries and Gatorade. Jair thought it was funny to put bacon on Camel’s croissant, since Camel is Arabic and their religion is against eating pork. So Jair gave him the croissant and Camel was about to take a bite out of it, but he stopped him because Jair is not a bad person. (They all laugh).  

They were coming back from lunch to go to P.E. on their way there, the P.E teacher told K.C, “Aren’t you going to change?” and K.C told him, “I am K.C, I do not need to change ok old man,” and the teacher kept on walking.

So later, they seen Chunky Boy and asked it if it wanted a double cheese burger and she said, “Yes!” as soon as it was going to grab it, K.C slapped it and threw it on the floor. Chunky Boy started crying and ran ten steps than got tired. Camel, K.C and Jair started to laugh. Then as soon as they walked, they saw….
TO BE CONTINUED!

The Book We Are Redaing part 2

The second part of How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accents starts to get less confusing than the first part of the book. I didn’t really like the book because I didn’t understand what was going on at all, but now, it starts making a little more sense to me.

The second part of this book is all about how the Garcia girls started to grow up in the Unites States and how they are letting go of their life in the Dominican Republic which we don’t know about yet. The girls seem as if they are now teenagers which explain most of the changes that are happening between them. America had an effect on the girls which made them do things like the teenagers of today.

The first chapter talks all about how the sisters were becoming more Americanized. When they go to their hometown again for the summer, their mother comes by for a visit and she is angry with the girls. It just so happens that their mother had found a bag of marijuana in the girls’ room and she wanted to know what was up with that. The youngest daughter Sofia stepped up and said that it was hers’. The mom didn’t want the father to find out about this, so she decided that the three other girls would go back to the United States and Sofia would have the choice of going back and attending a Catholic school or staying in the Dominican Republic. She decided to stay.

By the winter time, the three sisters went back to the place where Sofia was at and they heard that their sister had changed a lot. They found out that Sofia was seeing this boy who was also their cousin named, Manuel Gustavo. After they had met him the girls thought that he was too demanding and that all he wanted was to have sex. In their plan to get rid of him and get Sofia to go back home, the sisters had tricked them because the girls were never to be left unwatched and that is what they did. Sofia was left alone with her boyfriend. She got caught and got in trouble. She was mad at her sisters for doing that to her.

The theme of this part of the book was to show how the girls were already growing up and how America had grown on the Garcia girls.

Respond To The Book We Are Reading

garcia gThe book to me has been really confusing already. I really do not understand what the book is talking about. Usually a book will come with some type of message or an overall theme to it and I have not seen that yet in How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents. I think the reason why I am not getting the book so much is because of the way it is organized. I have never read a book where they do backwards chronological order and that’s why the whole book is not making sense to me at the moment. There are four short chapters in the first part of the book and the book is divided into three big parts.
　
I have to admit that I think the book so far is not really that good, but the short stories are kind of interesting. The whole first part of the book talks about the four girls that are the main characters to this story: Yolanda, Sandra, Sofia and Carla. This first part is saying the story in the present tense to where the girls are right now. It is still confusing though because when they talk about the stories as they are being told, they are basically going back to the past.
The first four chapters all have to do with the lives of the four girls and how their relationship is with their parents who brought them to America. The girls are from the Dominican Republic, but they have not talked about when they were there yet. They only talked about that in the first chapter, but that is when Yolanda, one of the four sisters went back there to visit some of the family.
For the next two parts of the book, I do hope that the story will start making more sense and that it will be more interesting to read about because right now, it really isn’t. I predict that the next two section of the book will only talk about how the girls were misbehaving and the story of how the family came to live in America.