I drew a picture of the "long-nosed, lime-green car" (page 155) that Carla discussed in chapter 8, Trespass. The four girls' mother had gone through a lot of trouble to protect the girls from dangers in America. She sent all of them to Catholic school, their mother insisted public schools "were where juvenile delinquents went and where teachers taught those new crazy ideas about how we all came from monkeys." (page 152) However, the seventh grade in the closest Catholic school was full, so Carla was sent to one that was even farther away from the public school.One day on her walk home from the bus stop, Carla was stopped by a man in a green car who exposed himself to her and tried to get her to come into his car. What kind of affect could this have on a young girl who barely knew about the changes happening to her own body? How do you think this changed their mother's perception of the protection she thought she had been offereing her daughters?
I think this had a major affect on Carla, as this kind of situation would have on any child her age. Not only would this situation scare her, but it showed her something she had never seen before. In this chapter, Carla was made fun of in school and afraid of the changes her body was going through.
ReplyDelete"her body was changing. The girl she had been back home was being shed. In her place- almost as if the boys' ugly words and taunts had the power of spells- was a hairy, breast-budding grown up no one would ever love".
This event also took away some sort of innocence from Carla. When being interviewed by the police, she couldn't even think of the name of a man's genitals.
Carla's mother was scared by this event. She took her out of the Catholic school and into the public school closer to their house.
I also was wondering how everyone certain aspects affected this. Consider race, setting, etc.
ReplyDeleteFor example, I think that the setting affects this because it took place in a suburban neighborhood, which is supposed to be considered safe.
Do you think that there is an underlying message to this? Maybe that the mother wasn't seeing what was right under her nose- life was not safe in either the US or DR. She could not protect her daughters from everything. Do you guys think there are more messages being conveyed?
I dont think it was a good idea, maybe her mother thought she was doing a good thing for her daughters but she finally learned whats best. Sending them father away gives them more of a risk for something to happen to them. And i disagree with her thought on public schools because not all public schools are bad, if you take advantage of what they are handing down to you.
ReplyDeleteI think that maybe now that she notices things, even though their isnt room in the closest Catholic school, they can be sent to the public school for a lower risk of getting hurt while walking to school.
That could actually be very dangerous to a young girl. This is so because they were unaware of what dangers lurked in America, and they thought that everyone was friendly. If they went with strangers, they would of probably gotten rapped, or kidnapped.
ReplyDeleteThis probably made the mother more aware of the dangers that lurked in NY, and tried to be more protective towards the girls. For example, she could of either went home with a friend, or got picked up by her parents.
Andrew Villa
She didn't know what was going on at first, since she knew little english and she didn't think things like this could happen in America. It did make the mother more worried about her girls making her become more protective to them.
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