Final Thoughts...

The term is coming to an end and I am still trying to articulate my thoughts about everything that we've read and discussed in class. I personally would not have picked up any of these books if I had saw them in a bookstore- but after reading them I found myself enjoying each one of them! Ok, maybe not Marti as much as the others probably due to its level of Spanish .
I am very glad to have read all these books because it allowed me to explore a world that I thought I was unable to relate to. However, reading about their daily struggles and triumphs tugged at my emotions and the fact that their stories were short, and sometimes even fragmented, made me completely drawn to them because the stories were so personal. Each story about Latin-American life was unique because if its details but yet the feeling behind each story represented a whole. When I think back to all the books we've read, all the stories in every book seem to come together to form one giant memory. I don't think about each book with its own title and meaning, rather, I find it hard to differentiate which story belonged to which. And that is what I found the most interesting/important.When the young boy in Y No Se Lo Trago La Tierra reflects all that has happened in the year, it is a compilation of all the fragments and everything becomes a whole. Like in Y No Se Lo Trago La Tierra, i feel that the fragmented stories represent each book that we've read and the final pages represents what I feel right now. All the stories come together as one because I think about how the many voices are conveying the emotion.

and a body to remember with

So far I am really enjoying Carmen Rodriguez' stories. It is really interesting how she writes about her life in Canada, and more specifically, in Vancouver! Every time she mentioned places in Vancouver it was so easy to picture it in my head, such as Stanley Park or Fraser and 49th (close to where i live.)

My favourite chapter in the first half of the book is "Black Hole". Estela describes Canada as a black hole, a place without an image. I can relate to this because when I was younger, my parents told me that we would be moving to Canada and I felt that nothing about Canada stood out to me. I couldn't even imagine how it would look like. When i arrived here I thought that it was so void of spirit and culture, even though Canada is known for its multiculturalism. I feel that because there are so many different cultures here that you can't really immerse yourself in one, or be accepted by everyone. It was so different from where I came and it seemed so cold. I was used to everybody sharing the same culture, values and giving each other a kiss on the cheek to say hello or goodbye. However, like the daughters of Estela I came to really like Vancouver.

The conversations between mother and daughter were disheartening to read. You could see how torn Estela was between her new life in Canada and her old life in Chile. Her mother was thrilled to find that Estela and her husband were off the blacklist and expected that they would be home soon. As a reader you know that Estela would have to make an important decision- to give up her new life in Canada or break her mother's heart. I really hoped that this story was longer so we can see more of Estela's life unravel.

How The Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents

I think that "How The Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents" effectively portrayed the internal struggles of a Latin American family trying to assimilate into the US. As we discussed in class, the girls as well as the parents desperately try to fit into the American culture. It is definitely a difficult situation on both sides. The parents want for their children to adapt American culture, but not too much so that they would forget their Spanish heritage. What is considered to be just the right amount of adaptation anyways?

The Garcia family moving to the US all together only caused family conflict and tension. The root of family problems within the family began when they had no choice but to leave the Dominican Republic. In the girls' childhood, they lived a privileged life with maids and an abundance of gifts. However I think that as the girls grew older they grew further apart from each other and from their parents. The necessity for the girls to integrate into American life left them unable to relate to their parents' traditional perspectives. For example, Sofia's departure from her family was due to her father's inability to cope with her sexual expressiveness, causing a serious rift in her family. One point mentioned in class was how could two out of the four Garcia girls be put into mental institutions if the parents had not done anything wrong? I think that having two Garcia girls institutionalized demonstrated just how much the family had drifted apart. The girls being put into institutions demonstrate how their parents were unable to relate and reach out to their daughters emotionally in a time of need. It seems that if a family has been divided culturally, there is no solution to mend it and the gap between the parents and their children will only grow wider with time.