Last Writing Piece on Garcia Girls

How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents is a reflection of Julia Alvarez, the author’s life.  Many events in the story are reflected in Alvarez’s life, and the sisters are like her and her sisters (I think they are like her sisters).  Even though this book was quite interesting and extremely unique, the book was complicated and difficult to understand for many reasons. 

I didn't vote to read this book mostly because if its structure.  Its reverse chronological structure and short vignettes is extremely confusing for me, and I personally prefer different books to read.  Because of the reverse chronological story, the book starts with a scene in the middle of the Garcia girls' story of their journey from the Dominican Republic to the United States, and how they adapted to the different cultures.  Alvarez begins the story by saying,

"The old aunts lounge in the white wicker armchairs, flipping open their fans, snapping them shut.  Execpt that more of them are dressed in the greys and blacks of widowhood, the aunts seem little changed since five years ago when Yolanda was last on the Island...The cake is on its own table, the little cousins clustered around it, arguing over who will get what slice.  When their squabbles reach a certain mother-annoying level, they are called away by their nursemaids, who sit on stools at the far end of the patio, a phalanx of starched white uniforms."(1)

 Even though the great amount of detail used on the first page helps the readers visualize what is happening to the characters at the start of the book, it does not explain much about who Yolanda is, where this scene is occurring, and for what specific reason they are there.  From reading, the cake was island shaped, and I was confused about whether the party and cake was for Yolanda's birthday, or for a welcome back party, since Yolanda hadn't been on the Island "since five years ago."  To be honest, I'm still kind of confused about what the Island is.  I think "the Island" refers to the Dominican Republic, but I'm still not sure even after the group discussions.  I asked my group members and a few other friends and classmates about it, and they tell me that they are not sure either and that it is probably the Dominican Republic that it refers to.  As the story progresses, it is still hard to understand the different characters with the changing narrators and perspectives of the story that change between vignettes and even in the vignettes without an extremely clear indication of who the narrator is changing to, and when.  Because we do not know all of the characters like Chucha, the Garcia's Haitian maid who supposedly practiced voodoo and slept in a coffin, and had the only first person narrative in the story.

The book talks about Alvarez’s life in the Dominican Republic and her adjustment in the United States.  It portrays the many difficulties and destitution that she and her family faced as immigrants.  Unlike the Garcia girls, Alvarez was born in New York, New York, but moved back to the Dominican Republic when she was three months old.  In 1960, she and her family fled the Dominican Republic, and went back to the United States. Like the Garcia girls, Alvarez and her sisters were raised along their cousins, and were watched by their mother, maids, and aunts.

Sort of like Carlos, Yolanda’s father, Alvarez’s father was also in risk of being arrested or killed by the government in many different reasons.  Carlos was in risk because he resisted Trujillo's military dictatorship in the Dominican Republic, and because of his political activities, was forced to leave the Republic and escape to the United States. Alvarez’s father was involved in a plot to overthrow the dictator and military ruler of the Dominican Republic.  Because the plans were discovered, He had to flee the country with his family with the help of an American agent, and fled to New York, where they once lived.

Just like the Garcia girls, life in America was not like they imagined it to be.  The sisters and Alvarez missed their family in the Dominican Republic and the respect they had there, and didn’t feel like they fitted in with their thick Spanish accents.  They had little money, and struggled to live with the small amount of money that they held.  They all struggled to adapt to the new American environment, and the extremely diverse and different culture.

A lot like Yolanda, Alvarez wrote poetry.  They both wrote, for Alvarez she wrote both poetry and stories, and enjoyed storytelling, especially ones that they made up on their own.  In their culture, Alvarez’s relatives criticized her for “lying,” because she didn’t tell the truth in her stories, but rather, made up things of her own.

Yolanda often wrote her poems alone and in the dark: "This was Yoyo's [Yolanda's] time to herself, after she finished her homework, while her sisters were still downstairs watching TV in the basement.  Hunched over her small desk, the overhead light turned off, her desk lamp poignantly lighting her only paper, the rest of the room in warm, soft, uncreated darkness, she wrote her secret poems in her new language" (136).

Yolanda wrote her poems during her free time, but only when her sisters were occupied with something else to do, so they wouldn't distract or bother her in any way.  She wrote her poems in the near-dark, with only a desk lamp lighting up her paper.  The rest of the room stayed dark, yet warm, and created a soft darkness that allowed Yolanda to express her feelings, and for her ideas to grow better.  She wrote in the dark much better.  When Alvarez refers to "new language," she doesn't only mean English, which was a new language to Yolanda since she came from the Dominican Republic, where she had only ever spoken Spanish, but she also refers to the language that is different from everyday language that Yolanda used when she spoke.  When she wrote poems, they were much deeper and meaningful than the words that she said daily, and so was therefore in some sense, her new language, that was personally hers, and was understood and interpreted differently by different people. 

Although How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents was not a bad story, I probably wouldn't pick up a book like this to read on a daily basis.  It is complicated and difficult for me to comprehend, and it takes a lot of analysis for me to finally sort of understand what is going on in the story.  The reverse chronological order of the story doesn't work for me very well, and I personally haven't had a good history with vignettes, especially after reading my first book with vignettes, The House On Mango Street, last year.  That didn't make much more sense than this book did.

Success!

Psst... WOOT! YAY! :D
I figured out how to solve the 4x4!!! I haven't memorized every step yet, but I can solve it with some time. ;]

The End.

We have finally reached the last page of How the García Girls Lost Their Accents.  It's been quite a long journey since we started reading the book in Part I.  We've traveled with the García girls from the Dominican Republic and their spoiled lives, to America and their humble beginnings.

There has been a lot about sexuality in this book, and for the topics that Julia Alvarez focuses on and emphasizes the most in this book, it actually makes sense at the end of the book for her to write the book in reverse chronological order.  We first read about what the García sisters are like after moving to America, and adapting to the extremely different life that they started here than the Dominican Republic, where they had much power and money.  They had to try much harder in America to fit in, and they changed from being the typical "good girls" that their parents and relatives expect them to be, and start being more risky.  They stay out with boys without a chaperone, and lie to their parents about where they are when they call them to check on them.

The title of the book explains what the story is mostly about; how the García girls lost their accents and a lot of their culture, and became influenced by America.  In the last vignette, "The Drum,"  The kitten that Yolanda found in the shed, seems to symbolize the García sisters.  The four girls left the Dominican Republic far before they had matured enough to fully understand their culture and be able to maintain the culture that their family kept, like the kitten was taken away from its mother before it had matured enough to learn to survive without its mother's support.  They struggled as a result, since they still had to live up to their family's expectations of their success and constant good manners and actions that reflected well in their culture, even though the daughters were embarassed of their thick accents, and wanted to be able to do things the American way, not the Dominican Republic way, which they left far behind.  Because of the quick transition between their life in the Dominican Republic, and life in America, they were somewhat "injured" by the change.  They grew up with their focus on fitting in, rather than the cultural values that their family stressed.

Response to Music Club :D

Elton has always been one interesting student, and his blog posts do not miss a beat when it comes to fueling interesting responses, and even sometimes, debates. From his blog post, Music Club, the following quote really spoke to me:

So far the clubs practicing their music is going really great. Kyle and Yong Foo are teaching David the part and Carrie (I think that’s how you spell her name) is teaching Peter a bit on the piano. Kyle and Yong Foo are really great teachers. But when Amber was here she sang a song I’m not really sure. But if you get the chance, you should really ask Amber to sing, it has a really great feeling when you listen to her.

I wanted to make one comment about the last sentence in the first paragraph before saying anything else.  Elton, where did you hear that music club would be performing at Walmart(?!?) on December fourth?  We will be performing at ASTI's annual Silent Auction on December 4th.  Just FYI.

No offense intended to music club, but I feel like our meetings could be a bit more organized, and communication could be a lot more successful.  I get messages about some music club meetings from a friend, instead of a executive board member, and sometimes, like yesterday night, I got an extremely last minute music club meeting announcement, which threw me off guard, and I am usually busy on Fridays after school, but I managed to fit in some time in to go to the practice, but I got home an hour later than I was supposed to...

It was nice listening to the instrumentalists play today.  Normally music club is separated out into two different parts: the singers and the instrumentalists, and today, some of the instrumentalists stayed to practice, and it was nice watching them practice.  When I listened to Peter play, I got lost in the music, and I remembered why I originally fell in love with playing piano.  It inspired me to start again, since I stopped playing for a while, even though I teach my brother occasionally, and I practice on my own just for fun, I haven't made a commitment with piano yet.

Barbara changed around the lyrics for the rap part in Billionaire, and I won't give any of it away, but it's actually quite interesting, and it makes sense, which is great. :]

Kylie is still being Kylie, and in an effort to make me sing louder, he told me, "Think of me not as your ex-best friend, but as your singing instructor instead."  No offense Kylie, but I know how to sing, and even in my solos, I haven't been able to sing very loud my entire life.  It was my way to blend in better with the other singers at the choir.  If you sang too loud, you were looked down at.  If you sang quietly, well, no one would really notice, since they wouldn't be able to hear you anyways.  So I guess I've adapted to that, and it takes me a while to really warm up to singing loudly.  And I sing better lower notes than higher notes.

Thank you for your kind words, Elton :]  What do you not know?  I enjoy singing, and it's great to know that someone out there enjoys it too.

Rubik's Cube

This weekend is a full and busy one.  I hope I will still be able to get some rest and finish all my homework, especially finishing reading Garcia Girls before Tuesday lunch.

Even though this weekend is jam-packed, I cannot resist the call of the lone Rubik's cube, quietly sitting on the table, waiting to be solved.  This one is different from the others though.  Instead of a three-by-three, it's a four-by-four.  Which I don't know how to solve.  I can always try though.  Which is what I hope to be able to do sometime this weekend.

Instructions and directions for how to solve these cubes (all sizes) are nearly impossible to find, or else it takes hours to finally find a good one that is understandable.  Videos are completely helpless.  People who try to explain how to solve the cube make no sense at all to me, and I am plunged into confusedness once again, and begin searching around to find another place with solutions.

Way back from the middle school, or maybe even fifth grade in elementary, I found a Rubik's cube, and I learned how to solve one side and two layers of the cube (without print-out instructions :), but I didn't have the patience to try to learn the rest.

Last year, I found a print-out of instructions for how to solve the three-by-three, and spent hours and days trying to figure it out, and then another million hours practicing it, and attempting to memorize it.  I finally understood it a few weeks later, and I was addicted.  Any free time I had at home, I would spend in my room with my cube.  Twist here, turn here and again here, repeat the process again, look at the colors, double check to make sure that part was completed, think, start next sequence for next part to solve.  That was the way I solved the cube.  Part of my motivation to finally solve the cube was to show others that I could solve it, and another was to prove to some people that I was just as intelligent as they were, because I could solve the cube.

Some people find it so amazing that people can solve a Rubik's cube, but honestly, it isn't that hard.  Just set aside some time, find you're motivation and perseverance, because trust me, when you first start, this isn't a simple problem that you can solve in a few hours.  It takes time and much effort to figure out the instructions and memorize the steps to finally solve the cube.  It took a lot of muscle memorization, and by doing the steps time after time, it sticks.

This weekend, I will try to dedicate as much free time as I am able to find to solve the confusing four-by-four.  So far, I've solved a side, one layer, and I'm working of solving the corners.  I moved the corner cubes to their respectable locations, but I need to twist them, so their colors will match with the right sides.  Off to solve it!

I'm not so lost anymore... it's nice.

I finally made it to the second paper clip; it’s such a relief to know I’m two thirds done with the book.  Part II of How the García Girls Lost their Accents was much easier to read than the first part.  I understand the way Julie Alvarez writes much better, and am able to comprehend what she tries to say in each vignette.  

I was extremely surprised at how much Fifi (Sofía) changed in the six months that she stayed on the Island.  She was so independent and willing to talk back to others, and was in complete control of her own life, but after she stayed there, and her three sisters visited her three months later, she changed so much.  She seemed a lot more picky when they all give her a hug, and warns them not to mess her hair, which she used to never say.  Also, when her sisters see Manuel, and greet him with kisses and hugs, Fifi grows kind of defensive and tells them to get off of him since he was hers, although it wasn’t completely serious and the sisters didn’t stop.  She begins to lose a bit of her trust in her sisters and begins to grow withdrawn and watchful from her sisters’ flirtations with Manuel, and I think that a part of her reminds herself about her sisters’ habits, and she is a bit afraid that they might take Manuel away from her, making it seem like she lost her support branch in the Island to her sisters.  

I was most surprised by Fifi when Manuel took the book she was reading right from her hands, and tells her that she shouldn’t be reading books since they were bad for her and she had more important things to do.  When Fifi talks back to him, the sisters, like me, were glad that the old Fifi they knew was beginning to emerge again, but when he walks out, she calls him and pleads for his forgiveness, and it seems like she has completely been lost to the culture and the world that she has stayed in for half a year.

In our group discussion in class today, Nawara asked us what we thought about why Mami stopped inventing things after Yoyo’s (Yolanda’s) success in poetry.  I think that Mami stopped inventing things like she at one point did somewhat obcessively, because she did not have any support from her family, especially from Yoyo, who questions her and asks her what the point of inventing was.  She showed that she didn’t see any purpose or meaning in what Mami was doing when she invented things, so Mami lost a bit of her enthusiasm for inventing.  Also, with Yoyo’s success, Mami is less interested in taking time to think about things to invent, and much more interested in finding more people that she can brag her daughter’s success to.

Even though the book isn’t too bad, I hope that the next book we read will not be in vignettes (I thought the last one we would read would be House on Mango Street, but apparently not.), and not in reverse chronological order (it makes it more confusing when putting the story together and trying to understand what happened in which order).

Whaat?!?!

I haven't experienced writer's block until now.  What happened?!?  Did talking about writers block and coming up with ideas for things to write about in class somehow?
I have quite a few ideas to write about, but I have been so sleep deprived this week, I even skipped out on my weekly youth group, because I fell asleep in the car on the car drive there from San Francisco, and I didn't want to walk in late (15 minutes late...).  I tried to write a few pieces of fiction, but I started a few, but I was unable to finish them, so I saved them and started to try to write something new.
Writer's block is so frustrating though.  I hate the feeling of helplessness as I sit in a chair on the kitchen table, and type away, as my mom checks on my screen once every while to make sure that I am still on task, and not on Facebook, chatting, or surfing the web.
I think one of the main reasons why I am so distracted though, is because I am distracted by Phuong on Facebook, and because the TV is on, but when I usually write my blog posts, and do all my homework, I am on Facebook, switching back between the tabs.  I usually don't write with the TV on though, but it is extremely distracting with all the interesting current events.  There are so many acts of violence.  Channel after channel, news after news, there are reports of how a police officer was accused of sexually abusing his three children, many channels discussing and showing the riots in the streets of Oakland about the Mehserle case, the sentencing, and even a interview and report about a man who killed numerous people, but walked out of the room calmly, claiming that he didn't do anything, and that the man in the many surveillance videos wasn't him.  There was even a mother of a daughter who was (most likely) murdered by him that tried to talk to him, telling him that if it was an accident, he could admit it, that it was better if he got the case off his back if he was guilty of killing her daughter.  He stayed silent for forty minutes before finally telling her that he was nervous about talking to her too, but that he wasn't guilty.
I'm still tired and ready for sleep.  So sleep is where I'm headed.  The TV is off, and all I have to finish is to shower, and finish my blog post. I've got one checked off!

People Are Not What They Seem

You know those quiet people who seem the most innocent?  They're not.  In fact, they could be the most evil people you ever meet.  Just talk to Phuong Ha or Shiyun Yang more often, and you'll see what I mean.  On Phuong's Blog Post about Shiyun's Evilness, she warns others about Shiyun:

She cannot hide her innocent image for long to those she talks to a lot. One random comment I would make is that she and Amber can lead the world to destruction when they are together, and sadly, they do sit next to each other in history. 

I must say, out of Shiyun, Phuong and Crystal, Crystal is the most innocent and least evil (but only because I don't poke her like I did last year.  She was a lot more evil last year.), then Phuong is the sort of innocent, it really depends on who you are and how well you know her, but Shiyun is for sure, the most evil.  I think that if you are evil and stay around Crystal, your evilness will spread and she will start to become a bit evil, but not evil enough to bring chaos and destruction.  Phuong is an interesting case.  She likes to call everyone evil and insult and complain about how evil Shiyun and I are, even though she is almost just as evil as we are.  She looks so quiet and innocent, but it's the opposite of her true self.  She's an evil emo hater.   Shiyun is just plain evil, but at times, she can be nice.  She pokes, and plans such evil things, like Phuong said in her blog post, to rob a bank when there is a blackout.

Phuong says that Shiyun and I lead the world to destruction when we sit next to each other in history.  That is somewhat true.  We actually are not very evil when we are together.  On (I think it was) Wednesday, Shiyun borrowed Phuong's water bottle and waterfalled from it, because she was thirsty.  I decided to do a huge favor for both of them, and lent Shiyun my Sharpie.  We decorated and made Phuong's water bottle more unique, cute, and enjoyable to look at.  Of course, Phuong decided to be evil, and started to call us evil for drawing all over her water bottle.  It was totally not an evil act, but we decorated her water bottle with love.  How is that evil?!?!?

Shiyun is only evil in Mr. Sutherland's class, where she turns around once every while, and shows me something she stole from me.  After class, she tries to take something from my desk, hoping I don't see her taking it, but I see her most of the time.  If she takes something really obviously, I tell her it was obvious, and she gives it back, but when she takes one of my electronics and asks me if I know what she took, I say I do, but I let her keep it for a while.  She definitely needs to practice her skills if she wants to rob Phuong one day...

Psst! Phuong!!! Don't read this!
When there's a blackout, Shiyun, Crystal and I will rob Phuong.  Shiyun will do the robbing, and Crystal and I will assist her.  Crystal said that she was going to make Phuong pass out, and if there are any complications, I will be the one with a gun(a toy one of course, but Phuong isn't supposed to know that...).

The Garcia Girls Confuse Me D;

When our class voted on which book to read, I admit, I didn’t vote to read How the García Girls Lost Their Accents.  When looking through the three selections of books, I found that this book and The Joy Luck Club had the most appealing story line.  I really liked how Julia Alvarez wrote about the topic of how the American culture and life changes a traditional family from the Dominican Republic.  It provides interesting insight into their culture, and compares it to how different it is from the American culture.  

Before I started to read the book, I asked my friends and classmates if they had read it, and I kept on getting similar opinions from them.  They kept on telling me that the book was confusing and boring, so I had prepared myself for the worst, but when Sutherland read the story out loud in class, I found it quite the contrary.  The first vignette wasn’t very confusing, and it was interesting, although I didn’t know anything about most of the characters, except the names of the four sisters.  

I personally think that even though this book may be difficult to read, it helps me grow as a reader, because I have to read a few times to understand what is happening, and this is the most I have ever annotated any book.  I used to always avoid annotating a book last year, and I would just read, then do something else.  With this book though, I need to take time and take it all in, and slowly let it sink in before I can really understand what it means.  

The fact that the book is in reverse chronological order makes it confusing and a pretty hard read.  It’s hard to follow the story, and I am constantly confused by the characters and events that happen.  I understand what happens, but I’m still confused about who is narrating the parts, and what happened to who.

I’m a bit worried and nervous about reading the rest of the book.  Will the book begin to make more sense?  Will Alvarez clarify events and characters more clearly?  I’ll be able to finish Part II of the book by next Tuesday for sure, but understanding what I read is a whole other story.