How the Garcia girls lost their accent; Yolanda character study Essay Example

When Yolanda was young she liked to sneak into a shed that was said to be haunted by ghosts and spirits to search for devils. It was during one of these visits that she found a mother cat and her kittens. She decides to bring one of the kittens home with her to keep as a pet, this despite having been told by a stranger that the kittens are too young to be taken from their mother. As soon as she reaches her home with the kitten she grows annoyed with it's meows and throws it out the window, causing the kitten to hurt it's legs and try to find it's way home on it's own. Yolanda feels bad about this and is haunted by the mother cat in her dreams. This kitten symbolizes the Garcia girls and how they were plucked from their motherland when they were too young and the mother cat symbolizes the motherland, a land that haunts Yolanda and calls back for her kitten. After the family arrives in New York the girls start to attend a close by Catholic school. Yolanda is very fond of her teacher whom offers her much support. The teacher gives Yolanda special attention and helps her with her English. This might be one of the things that helped form Yolanda's fascination and love of language. Yolanda enjoys reading and writing poetry. When in school, she is chosen to write a speech and present to the rest of her school. The speech she writes is inspired with Walt Whitman and expresses subordination and that students should learn from their teachers but also rise above them and evolve which makes her father upset and he rips the speech into pieces. This shows how Yolanda is split between the American and the Dominican culture. She is trying to form an American identity and to express it but is held back by her father and the Dominican traditions. This split in Yolanda's personality is also shown in the chapter where the story of Rudy Elmenhurst is told. Rudy is a boy that Yolanda begins to date and he wants to start a sexual relationship between them. Yolanda, even though she