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Part 1, Chapters 3 & 4

1/9/2014

108 Comments

 
Below are chapters 3 and 4 of Julia Alvarez' In the Time of the Butterflies.

By Monday, January 13th, you should choose one quote that stands out to you from the text, and then compose AT LEAST 2 paragraphs (you may post longer responses) that speak to the significance of your quote as well as these chapters. In addition, you should identify connections you can make. Here are some think questions to get you started. You should address significance, connection and supposition  somewhere in your answer, but you also may branch off into other things that speak to you about these two chapters. That was a lot of writing so I'm going to type something happy here before putting more text. I LOVE YOU GUYS! I'M SO EXCITED TO BE READING THIS WITH YOU! 

By Wednesday, January 15th, you should respond to at least two other people's writing, keeping significance and connection in mind as well. Try to respond with at least 3 sentences, although you could of course go above and beyond this! 

I'll go first with a response below so you know what I'm after! 

Significance:
*What happens in these two chapters that feel important? Why do you think they feel important? What parts stand out? Why do you think they stand out? 
*What matters about these two chapters?
*Is there any part of these two chapters that give you a clue to why the book as a whole is valuable? What part?
*Why should people care about this story?
*Is this piece relevant to everyone? Who? Who isn’t it relevant to?  

Connection:
*How can you connect this piece to current events, to the past or the future?
*What personal connections can you draw to these two chapters? Do these characters remind you of anyone or anything in your own life? 
*How does any part of this connect to any other areas of your learning? (Maybe other subjects/texts that you have studied in the past or present?)
*Do these two chapters connect to anything that you have read in the past?What? How?
*What other relationships/connections can you draw between these two chapters and your life, the world, other literature, history or other art? 

Supposition:
*Make a prediction about what is going to happen next for one or two of the characters.
*Which events in the book had a major influence on the direction of the characters?
*

CHAPTER THREE

This little book belongs to María Teresa

1945 to 1946

Feast Day of the Immaculate Conception

Saint’s Day of our school!

Dear Little Book,

Minerva gives you to me today for my First Communion. You are so pretty with a mother of pearl cover and a little latch like a prayerbook. I will have such fun writing on your tissue-thin pages.

Minerva says keeping a diary is also a way to reflect and reflection deepens one’s soul. It sounds so serious. I suppose now that I’ve got one I’m responsible for, I have to expect some changes.Sunday, December 9

Dear Little Book,

I have been trying to reflect, but I can’t come up with anything.

I love my new shoes from my First Communion. They’re white leather with just a little heel like a grownup young lady. I practiced a lot beforehand, and I must say, I didn’t wobble once on my way to the altar. I was so proud of myself.

Mama and Dedé and Patria and my little nephew Nelson and my little niece Noris came all the way from Ojo de Agua just to watch me make my First Communion. Papa couldn’t come. He is too busy with the cacao harvest.

Wednesday, December 12

Dear Little Book,

It is hard to write in you here at school. First, there is hardly any free time except for prayers. Then, when I do take a minute, Daysi and Lidia come up sneaky and grab you. They toss you back and forth while I run after them trying to catch you. Finally, they give you back, giggling the whole time like I’m being silly keeping a diary.

And you might not know this, Little Book, but I always cry when people laugh at me.

Feast Day of Santa Lucia

Dear Little Book,

Tonight, we will have the candle lighting and all our eyes will be blessed on account of Santa Lucia. And guess what? I have been chosen to be Santa Lucia by all the sisters! I’ll get to wear my First Communion dress and shoes all over again and lead the whole school from the dark courtyard into the lit-up chapel.

I have been practicing, walking up and down the Stations of the Cross with a blessed look on my face, not an easy thing when you are trying to keep your balance. I think saints all lived before high heels were invented.

Saturday, December 15

Dear Little Book,

What does it mean that I now really have a soul?

All I can think of is the picture in our Catechism of a valentine with measles. That is the soul when it commits mortal sins. Venial sins are lighter, like a rash instead of measles. A rash that goes away even without Confession if you say an Act of Contrition.

I asked Minerva what it means to her, having a soul. We had been talking about Daysi and Lidia and what I should do.

Minerva says a soul is like a deep longing in you that you can never fill up, but you try. That is why there are stirring poems and brave heroes who die for what is right.

I have that longing, I guess. Sometimes before a holiday or a birthday party, I feel like I’m going to burst. But Minerva says that’s not exactly what she meant.

Sunday, December 16

Dear Little Book,

I don’t know if you realize how advanced I am for my age?

I think it’s because I have three older sisters, and so I’ve grown up quick. I knew how to read before I even started school! In fact, Sor Asunción put me in fourth, though really, I should have been in third with the other tens.

My penmanship is also very pretty as you will have noticed. I’ve won the writing prize twice, and I would have this week, too, but I decided to leave some i’s undotted. It doesn’t help with the other girls if you are best all the time.

At first, Mamá didn’t even want me to leave home. But she agreed it made sense for me to come since this is Minerva’s last year at Inmaculada Concepción, and so I would have family here to look after me my first year.

Don’t tell anyone: I don’t like it here that much. But after we talked Mama into letting me board, I have to pretend. At least, Minerva is here with me even if she sleeps in another hall.

And you are here with me too, my dear Little Book.

Thursday, December 20

My dear Little Book,

Tomorrow, Minerva and I take the train home for the holidays. I can’t wait! My soul is full of longing all right.

I long to see Papa, whom I haven’t seen in three whole months!

And my rabbits, Nieve and Coco. I wonder how many new ones I have?

And Tono and Fela (they work for us) making a fuss over me.

And my room (I share with Minerva) with the windows you throw open on the garden with its bougainvillea arch like the entrance to a magic kingdom in a storybook.And to be called Mate. (We’re not allowed nicknames here. Even Dedé was called Belgica, which no one has ever called her.)

I guess I will miss some things here.

Like dear Sor Milagros who always helps me braid my hair with ribbons. And Daysi and Lidia who have been so nice lately. I think it helped that Minerva had a talk with them.

But I will NOT miss waking up at six and early morning Matins and sleeping in a big dormitory hall with rude sleepers who snore and Rest & Silence every day and wearing a navy blue serge uniform when there are so many nicer colors and fabrics in the world.

And the chocolate not made with enough chocolate.

Sunday, December 23

Home!

My dear,

Minerva explained everything to me in detail and with diagrams as we were coming home on the train. I was not one bit surprised. First, she had already told me about cycles, and second, we do live on a farm, and it’s not like the bulls are exactly private about what they do. But still, I don’t have to like it. I am hoping a new way will be found by the time I am old enough to be married.

Oh dear, everyone is calling me to come see the pig Tio Pepe brought for tomorrow’s Christmas Eve party.

To be continued, Little Book.

Later

Back to the train coming home. A young man started following us around, saying Minerva was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. (She’s always getting compliments when we walk on the street.)

Just as Minerva and I were going to sit down, this young man dashes forward and wipes our seat with his handkerchief. Minerva thanks him, but doesn’t really give him the time of day. At least not the time he wants, which is the invitation to sit with us.

We thought we’d gotten rid of him. We were riding along, the thing lesson being done, and here he comes again with a cone of roasted cashews he bought for us at the last stop. He offers it to me, although I’m not to accept tokens from strange men either.

And yet, and yet ... those cashews smell so yummy and my stomach is growling. I look up at Minerva with my sad puppy dog look, and she gives me the nod. “Thank you very much,” I say, taking the cone, and suddenly, the young man is sitting to my left, and peering at the lesson on my lap.

“What a lovely drawing,” he says. I could have died! There it was, the thing and its two balls. Minerva and I giggled so hard, I started choking on a cashew, and the young man smiled away, thinking he had said something very clever!

Christmas Eve

My dearest, darling Little Book!

I am so excited! Christmas and then New Year’s and then Three Kings—so many holidays all at once! It is hard to sit still and reflect! My soul just wants to have fun!

My little niece and nephew are staying through Three Kings’ Day. Yes, at ten, I am an aunt twice over. My sister Patria has those two babies and is pregnant with a third one. Noris is so cute, one year old, my little doll. Nelson is three and his is the first boy’s thing I’ve seen close up, not counting animals.

First Day of 1946

Little Book,

I pulled out Regular from under my pillow for my New Year’s fortune. Mama frowns that this isn’t allowed by the pope, but I have to think fortunes really do tell the truth. My first day of the year wasn’t Good and it wasn’t Bad, just Regular.

It started out with Patria scolding me for telling Nelson ghost stories. I know that Patria is pregnant and not feeling all that well. Still, doesn’t she remember she used to play Dark Passages with me when I was only four?

And it was Fela who told me the zombie story. I just repeated it.

It takes the joy out of making my resolves, but here they are.

Resolves of Maria Teresa Mirabal for 1946:

I resolve not to scare Nelson with scary stories.

I resolve to be diligent with my tasks and not fall asleep when I say my prayers.

I resolve not to think of clothes when I am in church.

I resolve to be chaste, as that is a noble thing to do. (Sor Asunción said we should all resolve this as young ladies in the holy Catholic and Apostolic church.)

I resolve not to be so tenderhearted as even Minerva says crying will bring on prematuring wrinkles.I think that is enough resolves for a regular year.

Friday, January 4

Dearest Little Book,

We went all the way to the shops in Santiago. They were swamped. Everyone shopping for Three Kings. We had a list made up with things we needed. Papá had given me some money for helping him out at the store. He calls me his little secretary.

I talked Mamá into letting me buy another pair of shoes. She didn’t see why I needed a second pair since she just got me my First Communion ones. But these newest ones are patent leather, and I have always wanted patent leather shoes. I must admit Minerva helped with some of the convincing.

Minerva is so smart. She always finds ways around Mama.

Like today, Minerva found this cute red-and-white checkered swimsuit with a little skirt. When she went to buy it, Mamá reminded Minerva of her promesa. Last night at dinner, Minerva announced that this year she’s giving up swimming in our lagoon in exchange for divine help in becoming a lawyer. Minerva drops hints as big as bombs, Papá always says.

“I don’t plan to use it,” Minerva explained to Mamá. “But how can my promesa have any bite unless I have a pretty suit to tempt me?”

“You are going to argue with Saint Peter at the gate,” Mamá said. But she was smiling and shaking her head.

Saturday, January 5

Dear Little Book,

Cousin Berto is so dear. His older brother Raúl, too, but Berto is especially special-minded, if that is a word.

Yesterday when Tía Flor was up with the boys, Mama was bemoaning that her rose bushes were so scrabbly and saying she wasn’t going to be seeing much of her favorite flowers this year. Right after breakfast this morning, Berto appears with a big basketful of the most beautiful roses for her he had picked himself. Tia’s garden has been blooming every variety. Berto had arranged them so specially in the basket. He had picked them with long stems too. Isn’t that unheard of for a boy?

The whole house is as sweet as a perfume shop this morning.

Three Kings Day

Dear Little Book,

I had such a time deciding between the patent leather and white leather for church today. I finally settled for the white pair as Mamá picked those out for my First Communion, and I wanted her to feel that they were still my favorites.

Afterwards at Three Kings dinner with all the uncles and cute cousins, there was a funny little moment. Tío Pepe reminded us of the big parade next Sunday for Benefactor’s Day, and Minerva said something like why don’t we go celebrate at the cemetery. The room went silent as a tomb, all right.

I guess I do have a reflection. Why should we celebrate Benefactor’s Day in the cemetery? I asked Minerva, but she said it was just a bad joke, forget she said so.

Benefactor’s Day

My dear Little Book,

We’re expecting Tio Pepe any moment. He is coming in the old wagon and taking us to the celebrations in Salcedo. After the parade, there’s going to be recitations and a big party over at the town hall. Papá is going to say the speech for the Trujillo Tillers!

This time I’m inaugurating my patent leather shoes and a baby blue poplin dress with a little jacket to match. Patria made them for me with fabric I picked out.

While we’re waiting, I am taking these few minutes to wish El Jefe Happy Benefactor’s Day with all my heart. I feel so lucky that we have him for a president. I am even born the same month he is (October) and only nine days (and forty-four years!) apart. I keep thinking it shows something special about my character.

Monday, January 14

Dear best friend Little Book,

Back at school after the holidays, and I am so homesick. Really, I am writing to keep myself from crying.

Daysi is now best friends with Rita. They both live in Puerto Plata, so they became best friends over the holidays. Maybe Lidia will be my best friend now. She is not coming back until after the Virgencita’s feast day on the 21st as her whole family is making the pilgrimage to Higüey.

We are having Rest & Silence before lights-out. We must keep quiet and not visit with each other, but think only of our immortal souls.

I am so tired of mine.

Monday February 18

Dear Little Book,

This morning without warning, I was summoned to the principal’s office, and my heart dropped when I saw Minerva there, too. At first, I thought someone had died in our family until I noticed Minerva eyeballing me as if to say, watch what you say, girl.Sor Asunción comes right out and says your older sister has been caught sneaking out of school. Then, before I can even put that in my head, she asks me if our Tio Mon, who lives in La Vega, is ill, yes or no. I take one look at Minerva’s sick-looking face and I nod yes, our Tío Mon is ill, and then I invent with sarampión, last I heard.

Minerva’s face recovers. She flashes our principal an I-told-you-so look.

I guess I even improved upon her lie. Now Minerva could explain her sneaking out. Sarampión’s so contagious, the sisters would’ve never let her visit if she’d asked.

Thursday, February 21

Dear Little Book,

I’ve been worrying about Minerva sneaking out and lying about Tío Mon. Today, after our courtyard rosary, I cornered her behind the statue of the Merciful Mother. What is going on? I asked, but she tried to brush me off with a joke, “Now, little sister, you don’t want us to talk behind the Virgin’s back, do you?”

I said yes, yes I do. So Minerva said I was too young to be told some things. That made me angry. I told her that if I was going to commit a Mortal sin, as lying to a religious can’t be Venial, the least Minerva could do was tell me what I was risking my immortal soul for.

She seemed pretty impressed with my arguing back at her like that. She’s always telling me to stand up for myself, but I guess she didn’t figure I’d stand up to her.

She promised to tell me later when we can have a more private conversation.

Sunday, February 24

Little Book,

The whole school went to the Little Park of the Dead today. Minerva and I had a chance to talk and she told me everything. Now I am worried to death again. I swear my older sister will be the death of me!

It turns out she and Elsa and Lourdes and Sinita have been going to some secret meetings over at Don Horacio’s house! Don Horacio is Elsa’s grandfather who is in trouble with the police because he won’t do things he’s supposed to, like hang a picture of our president in his house. Minerva says the police don’t kill him because he is so old, he will soon die on his own without any bother to them.

I asked Minerva why she was doing such a dangerous thing. And then, she said the strangest thing. She wanted me to grow up in a free country.

“And it isn’t that already?” I asked. My chest was getting all tight. I felt one of my asthma attacks coming on.

Minerva didn’t answer me. I supposed she could see that I was already upset enough. She took both my hands in hers as if we were getting ready to jump together into a deep spot in the lagoon of Ojo de Agua. “Breathe slowly and deeply,” she intoned, “slowly and deeply.”

I pictured myself on a hot day falling, slowly and deeply, into those cold layers of water. I held on tight to my sister’s hands, no longer afraid of anything but that she might let go.

Monday, February 25

Dearest Little Book,

It is so strange now I know something I’m not supposed to know. Everything looks just a little different.

I see a guardia, and I think, who have you killed. I hear a police siren, and I think who is going to be killed. See what I mean?

I see the picture of our president with eyes that follow me around the room, and I am thinking he is trying to catch me doing something wrong. Before, I always thought our president was like God, watching over everything I did.

I am not saying I don’t love our president, because I do. It’s like if I were to find out Papá did something wrong. I would still love him, wouldn’t I?

Sunday, March 3

Oh dear! Little Book!

Tio Mon appears today for visiting hours with some letters and a parcel for us, and almost the first words out of Sor Asunción’s mouth are “And how are you feeling, Don Ramón?” I just about died of flabbergastedness, if that is a word. Minerva, who is much quicker on her feet, just hooked her arm in his and whisked him away saying, “Tío Mon, a nice stroll will do you good.” Tío Mon looked a little confused, but Minerva had him through the arm as well as around her little finger, so off he goes.About the letters he brought me. Dear Little Book, here I am ten years old and already getting beaus. Berto wrote again. I’ve shown Minerva all his letters and she smiles and says they are “sweet, boyish letters.”

I confess I didn’t show her his last one.

It’s not that it was mushy, but I felt sort of shy about it. Berto wrote so sympathizingly about my homesickness and signed himself, “your Stronghold.”

I do like the sound of that.

Tuesday, April 30

Dearest Little Book,

This new friend of Minerva‘s, Hilda, is really rude. She wears trousers and a beret slanted on her head like she is Michelangelo. Minerva met her at one of her secret meetings at Don Horacio’s house. Very soon this Hilda was always at Inmaculada. I think the sisters felt sorry for her because she is some kind of orphan. Rather, she made herself an orphan, I am sure. Her parents probably just died of shock to hear that girl talk!

She says the most awful things like she isn’t sure God exists. Poor Sor Asunción. She keeps giving Hilda little booklets to read that will explain everything. I’ve seen what happens to those little booklets the minute our principal turns her back. The nuns have let her get away with her fresh ways for a while, but today, they finally put their foot down.

Sor Asunción asked Hilda if she wouldn’t like to join us for Holy Communion, and Hilda said that she liked a heartier menu!

So, she was asked to leave and not come back. “She has a very poor attitude,” is how Sor Asunción explained it, “and your sister and her friends are catching it.” Although I hated to hear anyone criticize Minerva, I had to agree about Hilda.

Friday, June 27

My dear secret Little Book,

All week guards have been coming in and out, looking for Hilda.

Minerva has told me the whole story.

Hilda appeared a few nights ago at Inmaculada wanting to hide! What happened was she hid some secret papers in the trunk of a car she borrowed, and she ran out of gas on the highway. A friend came to pick her up, and they got some gas in a can at a station, but when they were on the way back, they saw police swarming around the car. The trunk was pried open. Hilda got her friend to drop her off at Inmaculada where she woke up Minerva and her friends. They all argued what to do. Finally they decided they had to ask the sisters for help.

So, late that night, they knocked on the convent door. Sor Asunción appeared, in her night dress, wearing a nightcap, and Minerva told her the problem.

Minerva said she still doesn’t know if Sor Asunción agreed to help Hilda out of the goodness of her heart or because this was a perfect lesson to teach that fresh girl. Imagine! Hilda, who doesn’t even believe in God!

The police have been here again today. They passed right by Sor Hilda with her hands tucked in her sleeves and her head bowed before the statue of the Merciful Mother. If I weren’t so scared, I’d be laughing.

Thursday, July 4

Home at last!

Dear Little Book,

Minerva graduated this last Sunday. Everyone went to La Vega to watch her get her diploma. Even Patria with her stomach big as a house. She is expecting any day now.

We are home for the summer. I can’t wait to go swimming. Minerva says she’s taking me to our lagoon and diving right in herself in her “temptation” swimsuit. She says why keep her promesa when Mamá and Papá still won’t let her go to law school in the capital?

I’m going to spend the summer learning things I really want to learn! Like (1) doing embroidery from Patria (2) keeping books from Dedé (3) cooking cakes from my Tía Flor (I’ll get to see more of my cute cousin Berto, and Raúl, too!!!) (4) spells from Fela (I better not tell Mama!) (5) how to argue so I’m right, and anything else Minerva wants to teach me.

Sunday, July 20

Oh Little Book,

We all just got back from the cemetery burying Patria’s baby boy that was born dead yesterday.

Patria is very sad and cries all the time. Mama keeps repeating that the Lord knows what he does and Patria nods like she doesn’t half believe it. Pedrito just cracks his knuckles and consoles her by saying that they can have another one real soon. Imagine making such a gross promise to someone who is already having a hard enough time.They are going to stay with us until she feels better. I am trying to be brave, but every time I think of that pretty baby dead in a box like it doesn’t have a soul at all, I just start to cry.

I better stop till I get over my emotions.

Wednesday, in a hurry

My dearest Little Book, Oh my dearest,

Minerva asks if I’m ready to hand you over. I say, give me a minute to explain things and say goodbye.

Hilda has been caught! She was grabbed by the police while trying to leave the convent. Everyone in Don Horacio’s meeting group has been told to destroy anything that would make them guilty.

Minerva is burying all her poems and papers and letters. She says she hadn’t meant to read my diary, but it was lying around, and she noticed Hilda’s name. She says it was not really right to read it, but sometimes you have to do something wrong for a higher good. (Some more of that lawyer talk she likes so much!) She says we have to bury you, too.

It won’t be forever, my dear Little Book, I promise. As soon as things are better, Minerva says we can dig up our treasure box. She’s told Pedrito about our plan and he’s already found a spot among his cacao where he’s going to dig a hole for us to bury our box.

So, my dearest, sweetest Little Book, now you know.

Minerva was right. My soul has gotten deeper since I started writing in you. But this is what I want to know that not even Minerva knows.

What do I do now to fill up that hole?

Here ends my Little Book

Goodbye

for now, not forever

(I hope)

CHAPTER FOUR

Patria

1946

From the beginning, I felt it, snug inside my heart, the pearl of great price. No one had to tell me to believe in God or to love everything that lives. I did it automatically like a shoot inching its way towards the light.

Even being born, I was coming out, hands first, as if reaching up for something. Thank goodness, the midwife checked Mamá at the last minute and lowered my arms the way you fold in a captive bird’s wings so it doesn’t hurt itself trying to fly.

So you could say I was born, but I wasn’t really here. One of those spirit babies, alelá, as the country people say. My mind, my heart, my soul in the clouds.

It took some doing and undoing to bring me down to earth.

From the beginning, I was so good, Mamá said she’d forget I was there. I slept through the night, entertaining myself if I woke up and no one was around. Within the year, Dedé was born, and then a year later Minerva came along, three babies in diapers! The little house was packed tight as a box with things that break. Papa hadn’t finished the new bedroom yet, so Mama put me and Dedé in a little cot in the hallway. One morning, she found me changing Dedé’s wet diaper, but what was funny was that I hadn’t wanted to disturb Mama for a clean one, so I had taken off mine to put on my baby sister.

“You’d give anything away, your clothes, your food, your toys. Word got around, and while I was out, the country people would send their kids over to ask you for a cup of rice or a jar of cooking oil. You had no sense of holding on to things.

“I was afraid,” she confessed, “that you wouldn’t live long, that you were already the way we were here to become.”

Padre Ignacio finally calmed her fears. He said that maybe I had a calling for the religious life that was manifesting itself early on. He said, with his usual savvy and humor, “Give her time, Dona Chea, give her time. I’ve seen many a little angel mature into a fallen one.”

His suggestion was what got the ball rolling. I was called, even I thought so. When we played make-believe, I’d put a sheet over my shoulders and pretend I was walking down long corridors, saying my beads, in my starched vestments.

I’d write out my religious name in all kinds of script—Sor Mercedes—the way other girls were trying out their given names with the surnames of cute boys. I’d see those boys and think, Ah yes, they will come to Sor Mercedes in times of trouble and lay their curly heads in my lap so I can comfort them. My immortal soul wants to take the whole blessed world in! But, of course, it was my body, hungering, biding its time against the tyranny of my spirit.At fourteen, I went away to Inmaculada Concepción, and all the country people around here thought I was entering the convent. “What a pity,” they said, “such a pretty girl.”

That’s when I started looking in the mirror. I was astonished to find, not the child I had been, but a young lady with high firm breasts and a sweet oval face. She smiled, dimpling prettily, but the dark, humid eyes were full of yearning. I put my hands up against the glass to remind her that she, too, must reach up for the things she didn’t understand.

At school the nuns watched me. They saw the pains I took keeping my back straight during early mass, my hands steepled and held up of my own volition, not perched on the back of a pew as if petition were conversation. During Lent, they noted no meat passed my lips, not even a steaming broth when a bad catarrh confined me to the infirmary.

I was not yet sixteen that February when Sor Asunción summoned me to her office. The flamboyants,.I remember, were in full bloom. Entering that sombre study, I could see just outside the window the brilliant red flames lit in every tree, and beyond, some threatening thunderclouds.

“Patria Mercedes,” Sor Asunción said, rising and coming forward from behind her desk. I knelt for her blessing and kissed the crucifix she held to my lips. I was overcome and felt the heart’s tears brimming in my eyes. Lent had just begun, and I was always in a state during those forty days of the passion of Christ.

“Come, come, come”—she helped me up—“we have much to speak of.” She led me, not to the stiff chair set up, interrogative style, in front of her desk, but to the plush crimson cushion of her window seat.

We sat one at each end. Even in the dimming light I could see her pale gray eyes flecked with knowing. I smelled her wafer smell and I knew I was in the presence of the holy. My heart beat fast, scared and deeply excited.

“Patria Mercedes, have you given much thought to the future?” she asked me in a whispery voice.

Surely it would be pride to claim a calling at my young age! I shook my head, blushing, and looked down at my palms, marked, the country people say, with a map of the future.

“You must pray to the Virgencita for guidance,” she said.

I could feel the tenderness of her gaze, and I looked up. Beyond her, I saw the first zigzag of lightning, and heard, far off, the rumble of thunder. “I do, Sister, I pray at all times to know His will so it can be done.”

She nodded. “We have noticed from the first how seriously you take your religious obligations. Now you must listen deeply in case He is calling. We would welcome you as one of us if that is His Will.”

I felt the sweet release of tears. My face was wet with them. “Now, now,” she said, patting my knees. “Let’s not be sad.”

“I’m not sad, Sister,” I said when I had regained some composure. “These are tears of joy and hope that He will make His will known to me.”

“He will,” she assured me. “Listen at all times. In wakefulness, in sleep, as you work and as you play.”

I nodded and then she added, “Now let us pray together that soon, soon, you will know.” And I prayed with her, a Hail Mary and an Our Father, and I tried hard but I could not keep my eyes from straying to the flame trees, their blossoms tumbling in the wind of the coming storm.

There was a struggle, but no one could tell. It came in the dark in the evil hours when the hands wake with a life of their own. They rambled over my growing body, they touched the plumping of my chest, the mound of my belly, and on down. I tried reining them in, but they broke loose, night after night.

For Three Kings, I asked for a crucifix for above my bed. Nights, I laid it beside me so that my hands, waking, could touch his suffering flesh instead and be tamed from their shameful wanderings. The ruse worked, the hands slept again, but other parts of my body began to wake.My mouth, for instance, craved sweets, figs in their heavy syrup, coconut candy, soft golden flans. When those young men whose surnames had been appropriated for years by my mooning girlfriends came to the store and drummed their big hands on the counter, I wanted to take each finger in my mouth and feel their calluses with my tongue.

My shoulders, my elbows, my knees ached to be touched. Not to mention my back and the hard cap of my skull. “Here’s a peseta,” I’d say to Minerva. “Play with my hair.” She’d laugh, and combing her fingers through it, she’d ask, “Do you really believe what the gospel says? He knows how many strands of hair are on your head?”

“Come, come, little sister,” I’d admonish her. “Don’t play with the word of God.”

“I’m going to count them,” she’d say. “I want to see how hard His work is.”

She’d start in as if it were not an impossible task, “Uno, dos, tres ...” Soon her gratifying fingering and her lilting voice would lull me to sleep again.

It was after my conference with Sor Asunción, once I had begun praying to know my calling, that suddenly, like a lull in a storm, the cravings stopped. All was quiet. I slept obediently through the night. The struggle was over, but I was not sure who had won.

I thought this was a sign. Sor Asunción had mentioned that the calling could come in all sorts of ways, dreams, visitations, a crisis. Soon after our conference, school was out for Holy Week. The nuns closed themselves up in their convent for their yearly mortifications in honor of the crucifixion of their bridegroom and Lord, Jesus Christ.

I went home to do likewise, sure in my bones that I would hear His calling now. I joined in Padre Ignacio’s Holy Week activities, going to the nightly novenas and daily mass. On Holy Thursday, I brought my pan and towels along with the other penitents for washing the feet of the parishioners at the door of the church.

The lines were long that night. One after another, I washed pairs of feet, not bothering to look up, entranced in my prayerful listening. Then, of a sudden, I noticed a pale young foot luxuriant with dark hair in my fresh pan of water, and my legs went soft beneath me.

I washed that foot thoroughly, lifting it by the ankle to soap the underside as one does a baby’s legs in cleaning its bottom. Then, I started in on the other one. I worked diligently, oblivious to the long lines stretching away in the dark. When I was done, I could not help looking up.

A young man was staring down at me, his face alluring in the same animal way as his feet. The cheeks were swarthy with a permanent shadow, his thick brows joined in the center. Underneath his thin guayabera, I could see the muscles of his broad shoulders shifting as he reached down and gave me a wad of bills to put in the poor box as his donation.

Later, he would say that I gave him a beatific smile. Why not? I had seen the next best thing to Jesus, my earthly groom. The struggle was over, and I had my answer, though it was not the one I had assumed I would get. For Easter mass, I dressed in glorious yellow with a flamboyant blossom in my hair. I arrived early to prepare for singing Alleluia with the other girls, and there he was waiting for me by the choir stairs.

Sixteen, and it was settled, though we had not spoken a word to each other. When I returned to school, Sor Asunción greeted me at the gate. Her eyes searched my face, but I would not let it give her an answer. “Have you heard?” she asked, taking both my hands in her hands.

“No, Sister, I have not,” I lied.

April passed, then came May, the month of Mary. Mid-May a letter arrived for me, just my name and Inmaculada Concepción in a gruff hand on the envelope. Sor Asunción called me to her office to deliver it, an unusual precaution since the sisters limited themselves to monitoring our correspondence by asking us what news we had gotten from home. She eyed me as I took the envelope. I felt the gravity of the young man’s foot in my hand. I smelled the sweat and soil and soap on the tender skin. I blushed deeply.“Well?” Sor Asunción said, as if she had asked a question and I was tarrying in my answer. “Have you heard, Patria Mercedes?” Her voice had grown stem.

I cleared my throat, but I could not speak. I was so sorry to disappoint her, and yet I felt there was nothing to apologize for. At last, my spirit was descending into flesh, and there was more, not less, of me to praise God. It tingled in my feet, warmed my hands and legs, flared in my gut. “Yes,” I confessed at last, “I have heard.”

I did not go back to Inmaculada in the fall with Dedé and Minerva. I stayed and helped Papa with minding the store and sewed frocks for Maria Teresa, all the while waiting for him to come around.

His name was Pedrito González, the son of an old farming family from the next town over. He had been working his father’s land since he was a boy, so he had not had much formal schooling. But he could count to high numbers, launching himself first with his ten fingers. He read books, slowly, mouthing words, holding them reverently like an altar boy the missal for the officiating priest. He was born to the soil, and there was something about his strong body, his thick hands, his shapely mouth that seemed akin to the roundness of the hills and the rich, rolling valley of El Cibao.

And why, you might ask, was the otherworldly, deeply religious Patria attracted to such a creature? I’ll tell you. I felt the same excitement as when I’d been able to coax a wild bird or stray cat to eat out of my hand.

We courted decorously, not like Dedé and Jaimito, two little puppies you constantly have to watch over so they don’t get into trouble—Mamá has been telling me the stories. He’d come over after a day in the fields, all washed up, the comb marks still in his wet hair, looking uncomfortable in his good guayabera. Is pity always a part of love? It was all I could do to keep from touching him.

Once only did I almost let go, that Christmas. The wedding was planned for February 24th, three days before my seventeenth birthday. Papa had said we must wait until I was seventeen, but he consented to giving me those three days of dispensation. Otherwise, we would be upon the Lenten season, when really it’s not right to be marrying.

We were walking to our parish church for the Mass of the Rooster, Mama, Papa, my sisters. Pedrito and I lagged behind the others, talking softly. He was making his simple declarations, and I was teasing him into having to declare them over and over again. He could not love me very much, I protested, because all he said was that he loved me. According to Minerva, those truly in love spoke poetry to their beloved.

He stopped, and took me by the shoulders. I could barely see his face that moonless night. “You’re not getting a fancy, high-talking man in Pedrito González,” he said rather fiercely. “But you are getting a man who adores you like he does this rich soil we’re standing on.”

He reached down and took a handful of dirt and poured it in my hand. And then, he began kissing me, my face, my neck, my breasts. I had to, I had to stop him! It would not be right, not on this night in which the word was still so newly fleshed, the porcelain baby just being laid by Padre Ignacio—as we hurried down the path—in His crèche.

You’d think there was nothing else but the private debates of my flesh and spirit going on, the way I’ve left out the rest of my life. Don’t believe it! Ask anyone around here who was the easiest, friendliest, simplest of the Mirabal girls, and they’d tell you, Patria Mercedes. The day I married, the whole population of Ojo de Agua turned out to wish me well. I burst out crying, already homesick for my village even though I was only moving fifteen minutes away.

It was hard at first living in San José de Conuco away from my family, but I got used to it. Pedrito came in from the fields at noon hungry for his dinner. Afterwards we had siesta, and his other hunger had to be satisfied, too. The days started to fill, Nelson was bom, and two years later, Noris, and soon I had a third belly growing larger each day. They say around here that bellies stir up certain cravings or aversions. Well, the first two bellies were simple, all I craved were certain foods, but this belly had me worrying all the time about my sister Minerva.It was dangerous the way she was speaking out against the government. Even in public, she’d throw a jab at our president or at the church for supporting him. One time, the salesman who was trying to sell Papá a car brought out an expensive Buick. Extolling its many virtues, the salesman noted that this was El Jefe’s favorite car. Right out, Minerva told Papa, “Another reason not to buy it.” The whole family walked around in fear for a while.

I couldn’t understand why Minerva was getting so worked up. El Jefe was no saint, everyone knew that, but among the bandidos that had been in the National Palace, this one at least was building churches and schools, paying off our debts. Every week his picture was in the papers next to Monsignor Pittini, overseeing some good deed.

But I couldn’t reason with reason herself. I tried a different tack. “It’s a dirty business, you’re right. That’s why we women shouldn’t get involved.”

Minerva listened with that look on her face of just waiting for me to finish. “I don’t agree with you, Patria,” she said, and then in her usual, thorough fashion, she argued that women had to come out of the dark ages.

She got so she wouldn’t go to church unless Mamá made a scene. She argued that she was more connected to God reading her Rousseau than when she was at mass listening to Padre Ignacio intoning the Nicene Creed. “He sounds like he’s gargling with words,” she made fun.

“I worry that you’re losing your faith,” I told her. “That’s our pearl of great price; you know, without it, we’re nothing.”

“You should worry more about your beloved church. Even Padre Ignacio admits some priests are on double payroll.”

“Ay, Minerva,” was all I could manage. I stroked my aching belly. For days, I’d been feeling a heaviness inside me. And I admit it, Minerva’s talk had begun affecting me. I started noting the deadness in Padre Ignacio’s voice, the tedium between the gospel and communion, the dry papery feel of the host in my mouth. My faith was shifting, and I was afraid.

“Sit back,” Minerva said, kindly, seeing the lines of weariness on my face. “Let me finish counting those hairs.”

And suddenly, I was crying in her arms, because I could feel the waters breaking, the pearl of great price slipping out, and I realized I was giving birth to something dead I had been carrying inside me.

After I lost the baby, I felt a strange vacancy. I was an empty house with a sign in front, Se Vende, For Sale. Any vagrant thought could take me.

I woke up in a panic in the middle of the night, sure that some brujo had put a spell on me and that’s why the baby had died. This from Patria Mercedes, who had always kept herself from such low superstitions.

I fell asleep and dreamed the Yanquis were back, but it wasn’t my grandmother’s house they were burning—it was Pedrito’s and mine. My babies, all three of them, were going up in flames. I leapt from the bed crying, “Fire! Fire!”

I wondered if the dead child were not a punishment for my having turned my back on my religious calling? I went over and over my life to this point, complicating the threads with my fingers, knotting everything.

We moved in with Mama until I could get my strength back. She kept trying to comfort me. “That poor child, who knows what it was spared!”

“It is the Lord’s will,” I agreed, but the words sounded hollow to my ear.

Minerva could tell. One day, we were lying side by side on the hammock strung just inside the galería. She must have caught me gazing at our picture of the Good Shepherd, talking to his lambs. Beside him hung the required portrait of El Jefe, touched up to make him look better than he was. “They’re a pair, aren’t they?” she noted.

That moment, I understood her hatred. My family had not been personally hurt by Trujillo, just as before losing my baby, Jesus had not taken anything away from me. But others had been suffering great losses. There were the Perozos, not a man left in that family. And Martinez Reyna and his wife murdered in their bed, and thousands of Haitians massacred at the border, making the river, they say, still run red—iAy, Dios santo!I had heard, but I had not believed. Snug in my heart, fondling my pearl, I had ignored their cries of desolation. How could our loving, all-powerful Father allow us to suffer so? I looked up, challenging Him. And the two faces had merged!

I moved back home with the children in early August, resuming my duties, putting a good face over a sore heart, hiding the sun—as the people around here say—with a finger. And slowly, I began coming back from the dead. What brought me back? It wasn’t God, no señor. It was Pedrito, his grief so silent and animal-like. I put aside my own grief to rescue him from his.

Every night I gave him my milk as if he were my lost child, and afterwards I let him do things I never would have before. “Come here, mi amor,” I’d whisper to guide him through the dark bedroom when he showed up after having been out late in the fields. Then I was the one on horseback, riding him hard and fast until I’d gotten somewhere far away from my aching heart.

His grief hung on. He never spoke of it, but I could tell. One night, a few weeks after the baby was buried, I felt him leaving our bed ever so quietly. My heart sank. He was seeking other consolations in one of the thatched huts around our rancho. I wanted to know the full extent of my losses, so I said nothing and followed him outside.

It was one of those big, bright nights of August when the moon has that luminous color of something ready for harvest. Pedrito came out of the shed with a spade and a small box. He walked guardedly, looking over his shoulder. At last, he stopped at a secluded spot and began to dig a little grave.

I could see now that his grief was dark and odd. I would have to be gentle in coaxing him back. I crouched behind a big ceiba, my fist in my mouth, listening to the thud of soil hitting the box.

After he was gone to the yucca fields the next day, I searched and searched, but I could not find the spot again. Ay, Dios, how I worried that he had taken our baby from consecrated ground. The poor innocent would be stuck in limbo all eternity! I decided to check first before insisting Pedrito dig him back up.

So I went to the graveyard and enlisted a couple of campesinos with the excuse that I’d forgotten the baby’s Virgencita medallion. After several feet of digging, their shovels struck the small coffin.

“Open it,” I said.

“Let us put in the medal ourselves, Dona Patria,” they offered, reluctant to pry open the lid. “It’s not right for you to see.”

“I want to see,” I said.

I should have desisted, I should not have seen what I saw. My child, a bundle of swarming ants! My child, decomposing like any animal! I fell to my knees, overcome by the horrid stench.

“Close him up,” I said, having seen enough.

“What of the medal, Doña Patria?” they reminded me.

It won’t do him any good, I thought, but I slipped it in. I bowed my head, and if this was prayer, then you could say I prayed. I said the names of my sisters, my children, my husband, Mama, Papa. I was deciding right then and there to spare all those I love.

And so it was that Patria Mercedes Mirabal de González was known all around San Jose de Conuco as well as Ojo de Agua as a model Catholic wife and mother. I fooled them all! Yes, for a long time after losing my faith, I went on, making believe.

It wasn’t my idea to go on the pilgrimage to Higüey. That was Mamá’s brainstorm. There had been sightings of the Virgencita. She had appeared one early morning to an old campesino coming into town with his donkey loaded down with garlic. Then a little girl had seen the Virgencita swinging on the bucket that was kept decoratively dangling above the now dry well where she had once appeared back in the 1600s. It was too whimsical a sighting for the archbishop to pronounce as authentic, but still. Even El Jefe had attributed the failure of the invasion from Cayo Confites to our patron saint.

“If she’s helping him—” was all Minerva got out. Mama silenced her with a look that was the grownup equivalent of the old slipper on our butts.“We women in the family need the Virgencita’s help,” Mamá reminded her.

She was right, too. Everyone knew my public sorrow, the lost baby, but none my private one, my loss of faith. Then there was Minerva with her restless mind and her rebellious spirit. Settle her down, Mama prayed. Mate’s asthma was worse than ever and Mama had transferred her to a closer school in San Francisco. Only Dedé was doing well, but she had some big decisions ahead of her and she wanted the Virgencita’s help.

So, the five of us made our plans. I decided not to take the children, so I could give myself over to the pilgrimage. “You sure you women are going on a pilgrimage?” Pedrito teased us. He was happy again, his hands fresh with my body, a quickness in his face. “Five good-looking women visiting the Virgin, I don’t believe it!”

My sisters all looked towards me, expecting I would chide my husband for making light of sacred things. But I had lost my old strictness about sanctity. God, who had played the biggest joke on us, could stand a little teasing.

I rolled my eyes flirtatiously “Ay, sí,” I said, “those roosters of Higüey!”

A cloud passed over Pedrito’s face. He was not a jealous man. I’ll say it plain: he was not a man of imagination, so he wasn’t afflicted by suspicions and worries. But if he saw or heard something he didn’t like, even if he had said it himself, the color would rise in his face and his nostrils flare like a spirited stallion’s.

“Let them crow all they want,” I went on, “I’ve got my handsome rooster in San José de Conuco. And my two little chicks,” I added. Nelson and Noris looked up, alerted by the play in my voice.

We set out in the new car, a used Ford Papa had bought for the store, so he said. But we all knew who it was really for—the only person who knew how to drive it besides Papa. He had hoped that this consolation prize would settle Minerva happily in Ojo de Agua. But every day she was on the road, to Santiago, to San Francisco, to Moca—on store business, she said. Dedé, left alone to mind the store, complained there were more deliveries than sales being made.

Maria Teresa was home from school for the long holiday weekend in honor of El Jefe’s birthday, so she came along. We joked about all the commemorative marches and boring speeches we had been spared by leaving this particular weekend. We could talk freely in the car, since there was no one to overhear us.

“Poor Papá,” María Teresa said. “He’ll have to go all by himself.” “Papá will take very good care of himself, I’m sure, ” Mama said in a sharp voice. We all looked at her surprised. I began to wonder why Mama had suggested this pilgrimage. Mama, who hated even day trips. Something big was troubling her enough to stir her far from home.

It took us a while to get to Higüey, since first we hit traffic going to the capital for the festivities, and then we had to head east on poor roads crossing a dry flat plain. I couldn’t remember sitting for five hours straight in years. But the time flew by. We sang, told stories, reminisced about this or that.

At one point, Minerva suggested we just take off into the mountains like the gavilleros had done. We had heard the stories of the bands of campesinos who took to the hills to fight the Yanqui invaders. Mamá had been a young woman, eighteen, when the Yanquis came.

“Did you sympathize with the gavilleros, Mamá?” Minerva wanted to know, looking in the rearview mirror and narrowly missing a man in an ox cart going too slow. We all cried out. “He was at least a kilometer away,” Minerva defended herself.

“Since when is ten feet a kilometer!” Dedé snapped. She had a knack for numbers, that one, even in an emergency.

Mamá intervened before those two could get into one of their fights. “Of course, I sympathized with our patriots. But what could we do against the Yanquis? They killed anyone who stood in their way. They burned our house down and called it a mistake. They weren’t in their own country so they didn’t have to answer to anyone.”

“The way we Dominicans do, eh?” Minerva said with sarcasm in her voice.Mama was silent a moment, but we could all sense she had more to say. At last, she added, “You’re right, they’re all scoundrels—Dominicans, Yanquis, every last man.”

“Not every one,” I said. After all, I had to defend my husband.

María Teresa agreed, “Not Papá.”

Mama looked out the window a moment, her face struggling with some emotion. Then, she said quietly, “Yes, your father, too.”

We protested, but Mamá would not budge—either in taking back or going further with what she had said.

Now I knew why she had come on her pilgrimage.

The town was jammed with eager pilgrims, and though we tried at all the decent boarding houses, we could not find a single room. Finally we called on some distant relations, who scolded us profusely for not having come to them in the first place. By then, it was dark, but from their windows as we ate the late supper they fixed us, we could see the lights of the chapel where pilgrims were keeping their vigil. I felt a tremor of excitement, as if I were about to meet an estranged friend with whom I longed to be reconciled.

Later, lying in the bed we were sharing, I joined Mamá in her goodnight rosary to the Virgencita. Her voice in the dark was full of need. At the first Sorrowful Mystery, she said Papá’s full name, as if she were calling him to account, not praying for him.

“What’s wrong, Mamá?” I whispered to her when we were finished.

She would not tell me, but when I guessed, “Another woman?” she sighed, and then said, “Ay, Virgencita, why have you forsaken me?”

I closed my eyes and felt her question join mine. Yes, why? I thought. Out loud, I said, “I’m here, Mamá.” It was all the comfort I had.

The next morning we woke early and set out for the chapel, telling our hosts that we were fasting so as not to give them any further bother. “We’re starting our pilgrimage with lies,” Minerva laughed. We breakfasted on water breads and the celebrated little cheeses of Higüey, watching the pilgrims through the door of the cafeteria. Even at this early hour, the streets were full of them.

The square in front of the small chapel was also packed. We joined the line, filing past the beggars who shook their tin cups or waved their crude crutches and canes at us. Inside, the small, stuffy chapel was lit by hundreds of votive candles. I felt woozy in a familiar girlhood way. I used the edge of my mantilla to wipe the sweat on my face as I followed behind Maria Teresa and Minerva, Mamá and Dedé close behind me.

The line moved slowly down the center aisle to the altar, then up a set of stairs to a landing in front of the Virgencita’s picture. María Teresa and Minerva and I managed to squeeze up on the landing together. I peered into the locked case smudged with fingerprints from pilgrims touching the glass.

All I saw at first was a silver frame studded with emeralds and agates and pearls. The whole thing looked gaudy and insincere. Then I made out a sweet, pale girl tending a trough of straw on which lay a tiny baby. A man stood behind her in his red robes, his hands touching his heart. If they hadn’t been wearing halos, they could have been a young couple up near Constanza where the campesinos are reputed to be very white.

“Hail Mary,” Maria Teresa began, “full of grace ...”

I turned around and saw the packed pews, hundreds of weary, upturned faces, and it was as if I’d been facing the wrong way all my life. My faith stirred. It kicked and somersaulted in my belly, coming alive. I turned back and touched my hand to the dirty glass.

“Holy Mary, Mother of God,” I joined in.

I stared at her pale, pretty face and challenged her. Here I am, Virgencita. Where are you?

And I heard her answer me with the coughs and cries and whispers of the crowd: Here, Patria Mercedes, Fm here, all around you. I’ve already more than appeared.














108 Comments
Tanner Ragan link
1/9/2014 08:03:15 am

Significance:
What happened that was important was that Maria Teresa didn't know how bad of a man Trujillo was and loved him with all of her heart. What also happened was Minerva lied about taking care of her uncle and was actually having secret meetings with her friends about the truth of Trujillo. When Maria found out about the truth, she felt devastated. And the last story with Hilda being caught and Maria had to bury her book. These parts are important because Maria needed to know what Trujillo does. With the story with Hilda's capture, I believe this part is vital because the book can be found and set Maria as a target. With chapter four, An important part was when Patria met Pedrito. This part was important because before they met, Patria had a conversation with Sor Acunsion about resisting the "temptations" and listened to the Virgin. Patria had a third baby that was dead inside of her. The baby was buried and was soon dug out as Pedrito was afraid the area was unconsecrated. The baby was decomposed and effected both Pedrito and patria significantly. This part is important because this was the outcome to Patria not listening to the Virgin.


Connection:
I can connect this to the Bible and in Exodus, Moses lead the Isrealites out of Egypt and the Isrealites did not have as much faith in God causing multiple deaths during the journey. Just how Patria ignored the virgin, she had to pay a price. Another connection I can make is a show called Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood. In the show, the leader named Furher Bradley runs an entire country and at war with a rebellion. The show later on reveals that Bradley is actually exterminating his entire country for a cause he believes in.


Supposition:
I think Trujillo's spies find the diary buried under the ground and find connections of who she is related to assuming Maria's sister's know about the secrets with Hilda. An event that changed Maria was when she found out Trujillo is a bad man because it changes her perspectives on how this country is regulated. An event that scarred Patria was when she saw her baby decomposed and covered with ants.

Reply
Tanner Ragan
1/10/2014 06:16:53 am

Quote: "it won't be forever, my dear Little Book, I promise." -Maria Teresa

Reply
Evan Mark
1/12/2014 11:41:48 am

Quote: "I had heard, but I had not believed. Snug in my heart, fondling my pearl, I had ignored their cries of desperation. How could our loving, all-powerful Father allow us to suffer so? I looked up, challenging Him. And the two faces had merged.

Significance: The significance of this quote is showing that Patria now understands that Trujillo is doing wrong. This is important because the four sisters eventually start a rebellion against him, and if Patria didn't understand he was doing wrong, she never would have helped the rebellion, and if she didn't realize he was doing wrong, she may have kept some of the sisters from realizing it to.

Supposition: Dede will be the next sister to realize Trujillo is bad. She will probably only realize it halfway, and be reluctant to believe it at all.

Douglas Hunter link
1/12/2014 06:33:29 am

"That moment, I understood her hatred. My family had not been personally hurt by Trujillo, just as before losing my baby, Jesus had not taken anything away from me. But others had been suffering great losses. There were the Perozos, not a man left in that family. And Martinez Reyna and his wife murdered in their bed, and thousands of Haitians massacred at the border, making the river, they say, still run red—iAy, Dios santo!I had heard, but I had not believed. Snug in my heart, fondling my pearl, I had ignored their cries of desolation. How could our loving, all-powerful Father allow us to suffer so? I looked up, challenging Him. And the two faces had merged!"

Connection: I can connect this to the Book Night, by Elie Wiesel and how when Elie first saw death in the concentration camps his faith was shattered, just like Patria, Elie was extremely religious and dedicated much of his life to his faith, but when death was introduced to him, just as Patria's baby died.

Supposition: Patria has now come around to Minerva's way of thinking, and I predict that in the future chapters that Patria will approach Minerva and ask her how she can help stand up to Trujillo, she previously was not all that stirred up by Trujillo because seeeing her dead baby decomposing introduced the unfairness of death to her. Now she sees how Trujillo has been putting on the face of god as a sort of mask to cover up the horrific things he has been doing.

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Bonnie May link
1/13/2014 06:58:08 am

Hi Doug!

I really liked the quote that you chose and the way you connected it to Elie Wiesel in Night. It is interesting to me how many comparisons can be made between this book and the Holocaust. I also like the way that you compared Patria's new minset to Minerva's. It made me wonder, too, about what she might do to stand up to Trujillo in the future.

Nidhal Dawood
1/13/2014 07:26:31 am

Hey Dougieee,

I loved how you connected to Night because I feel the same way in how babies were treated and the pain parents had to go through. I cannot imagine my child being treated like an animal right in front of my eyes. I would take out all my rage and anger on the guards and let the guards take me instead of my son/daughter because its parents job to protect and spare their child's life.

Aaron Nguyen link
1/14/2014 10:21:23 am

Doug!
I thought that your connection to Night was very good! I felt the same about Patria and Ellie. It seems like lots of people have been connecting this book to the holocaust. I liked the way you described Patria's loss in faith, because I felt the same way! Good job!

Anna Ryburn
1/14/2014 10:31:22 am

Hello, Doug.
I really like the connection that you made to Night, with both people losing their faith after realizing the suffering that is occurring around them. I made that same connection as well, and I think it is a very significant development for her character. I feel that the whole story so far can be compared to the Holocaust.

Carol Cabrera link
1/12/2014 12:52:44 pm

Tanner,
I appreciate your unique connections in this reading response. I would like to see you connect specific things from ITTOTB, though. Which parts of the book are you connecting?

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Andres Testas link
1/14/2014 09:15:39 am

Tanner I liked your quote because it was a big part of the book when she had to leave her diary after writing in it for a very long time. I really liked how you connected these chapters to the Bible which I found cool because the fourth chapter was about faith.

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Sol Manuel Garza
1/14/2014 11:42:00 am


Hello Tanner.
I agree with your point that chapters 3 and 4 introduced the other two sisters. I think that these chapters have completed the family for the reader. Now, all four sisters have changed dramatically in the book. I agree that all the sisters have been “politicized” and now have a reason to hate Trujillo. Each sister has changed in a different way but I see how all of them could unite under a common cause. I think that the whole story has been set up and I predict that a lot more action will start soon.

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Nikki
1/9/2014 12:29:00 pm

Quote:


But I couldn't reason with reason herself.



Significance:


I think these two chapters show us a lot about how choices we think are insignificant can define us and/or our future. Maria Teresa starts to journal in her little book,given to her by Minerva, and evokes deep analyzation of her world. At first we see that she denies that this choice is going to take effect on her but as we read the entries we able to see the continuous growth in the mentality of Maria Teresa. Through Patria, we follow her as she had a conversation with Sor Acunsion about resisting the "temptations" and listened to the Virgin. Then choosing to put God on a shelf, and leaning on her own understand. Which lead her to give birth to a dead baby. This just really stood out to me because it got me thinking, of how many ways can I look at this? It made me think a glass. That the glass that we fill may be the one that can never be filled.


Connection:


The way the way the family, surroundings, and events are described in these chapters reminds me of stories my dad would tell me of his childhood. How they used to live on a ranch and live of the ground and animals. They kind of had a shop like papa in the story where they would sell their meats, cheeses, animals, beans, fur to the rest of the neighboring towns. It also reminded me of the white leather shoes my parents used to by me for church when I was small. Quite similar to the ones that Minerva got.


Supposition:


I think that Patria is going to go back to being a nun. When she is in the nun school though, Trujillo will fall in love with her like Lina but Patria will act like a spy for Minerva to help her to overturn Trujillo.
Or
I think that somehow the journal & documents of Minerva are going to end up in the hands of Trujillo and the hunt for the girls will begin.

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Sophie Godarzi link
1/13/2014 12:40:24 pm

Hi Nikki,
I really love your quote because it is extremely figurative and introduces new ideas.Your writing is very inspirational and includes several new concepts. I also think it is very interesting how you caught several small details of the book. Great job!

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Evan Mark
1/15/2014 08:34:25 am

Your connections were very interesting, and personal, without being too personal. I like that you connected the setting to something someone in your family told you about their life. Your supposition was bold, and it was kind of a nice change to read these other ones that say something that has no way of not happening, happens. I thank you for that

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Andres Testas link
1/9/2014 12:58:11 pm

Quote: “ ‘It is the Lord’s will’, I agreed, but the words sounded hollow to my ear.”

Significance: Maria loved Trujillo with all her love; she almost even worshiped him as a god. When she found the truth about him from Minerva she was heartbroken and angry at herself for loving a man like that. She also saw the world different now especially the guards and the police who were supposed to protect. Also when Hilda was captured, Minerva and Maria were scared so they buried all their connections (including Maria’s Diary) to Hilda so they wouldn't get hurt or captured. Patria was also a big part of this book because we found out that she is starting to lose her faith in God and everything. Her third baby brought that all down on her and Pedrito. The mother of the girls decided to move because of all of the things going on. Near the end of the chapter it seems that Patria is starting to get her faith back.

Connection: This reminds me of my first communion because before I did it I had doubts of God and his decisions but the priest showed me that everything happens for a purpose, even people dying. So I thought about it and for my first communion I finally knew what that all meant.

Supposition: What I think will happen is that Trujillo will find the papers that all the girls hid (Tanner and Nikki also said this) and Trujillo will try to find the girls and when he does he will capture them and hold them for questioning and then get a crush on Minerva or Patria and they will end up trying to kill Trujillo.

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Johana Guatemala link
1/13/2014 02:05:36 pm

Hey Andres!
I also found disbelief became a big part of these chapters from Maria to Minerva to Patria. All three girls stress losing belief in things that they lived by. The connection you made about your communion is a deep and personal one so thanks for sharing. I have a similar prediction on Trujillo developing a crush on one of the girls resolving in the death of the girls except for Dede. Did you notice the author has a similar sense of writing like Shakespeare did in Romeo and Juliet?

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Bonnie May link
1/10/2014 06:10:09 am

Quote:

"I should have desisted, I should not have seen what I saw. My child, a bundling swarm of ants! My child, decomposing like any animal! I fell to my knees, overcome by the horrid stench."

Significance:

Chapters 3 & 4 were significant because they allowed the reader to connect with the last two sisters. The way that chapter three was written using entries from Maria's little book let us get into her mind and hear her true feelings. It created an intimacy between the young girl and the reader in which we could hear her thoughts, struggles, and dreams. Chapter four, Patria's story, was sad and difficult to read. It grasped the feelings of Patria as a girl struggling between her calling in the church and her dreams for life. When her third baby is born dead, Julia Alvarez does a wonderful job in writing inside the mind of a mother who has lost her child. I like that we hear from every girl's perspective because we get to hear their story told personally, and all of their deep feelings. The quote that I chose is one that represents Patria's feelings and her despair as a mother losing her baby.

Connection:

I enjoyed reading chapter three and being able to hear Maria's childlike perspective and thoughts on her life. Though the stories are completely different, this chapter reminded me of the Diary of Anne Frank. The situations are much different, but they are both diaries from a child's perspective. They share their adventures, stories, and lives with the books.
While I was read chapter four, I noticed how quiet and reserved Patria became after her baby died and she lost her faith. Patria became secretive and hid her feelings from the world. I feel like I can connect to Patria in some ways. I have never lost someone that I love that has caused me to retreat from society, but I am a quiet person and I rarely share personal feelings with others.

Supposition:

I think that the letters and books that Minerva hid will be found by Trujillo and cause trouble for them. Trujillo is already suspicious of the girls in the school, and finding those papers could put Minerva's life in danger.

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Loren Cloes link
1/12/2014 04:59:22 am

Hey Bonnie,
I really like how well thought out your thoughts on how the quote you chose is significant. Also I really like how you input your self into the connection you made to Anne Frank and her feelings, and opinions. I agree that Trujillo is suspicious of the school that girls go to because of one little incident during the play.

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Carol Cabrera link
1/12/2014 12:54:28 pm

Bonnie,
I love your connection paragraph. I specifically like how you point out that we see Maria's "childlike perspective". I think the way the text is structured helps us see this perspective really clearly.

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Lizzy Young link
1/13/2014 04:59:26 am

Hi Bondle!
I agree that we really get the chance to connect with the youngest and oldest sisters in these two chapters. It's really interesting to hear about their thoughts, feelings, and issues, and how they are so different. I think it will be interesting to see how the different ages handle their problems differently.

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Natalie Au link
1/14/2014 06:52:58 am

Hi Bondle dondle!
I really love your connection paragraph. I really like your insight on how both Anne Frank and Maria were children that had their diaries as their best friends and they shared their lives with them. Most people connected elements from this book to history or different novels that we read, and so my favorite part of your connection was that you connected Patria to yourself.

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Aaron Nguyen link
1/14/2014 09:23:02 am

Bonnie!
Your significance post is a lot like mine! I can agree that it is a large, strange transition between Maria's diary and Patria's story. Maria's entry was light, cheerful, and seemed to take away from the darkness of the story. Patria's entry seemed a bit depressing and much more mature. Also, I like your connection. I also felt like Maria's diary was like Anne Frank's. Great job!

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Jasmin Diaz link
1/10/2014 10:25:49 am

Quote:

"Here ends my Little Book

Goodbye

for now, not forever

(I hope)"

Significane:

Chapters three and four explain much about Maria Teresa and Patria. We get to learn more about their personalities and what they went through. Maria Teresa is very involved in her diary because Minerva said it deepens the soul and is for reflection. Maria seems very sweet and obedient, and really expresses her feelings in the diary. In chapter four, we learn how Patria wanted to become a nun when she was younger and ho she was very religious. Although, she did give up being a nun and decided to get married and have children. When she lost her third child, she began to lose faith in God and became less religious.

Connection:

The quote I used is from the very end of chapter three, when Maria Teresa had to give up and bury her diary. I can connect this to the Holocaust, more specifically the story of Anne Frank. Anne Frank kept a diary when she was living in the secret annex, and wrote about everything that was going on and her feelings. She took value in her diary because she wanted to become a writer and hoped that one day her diary would become a story. Maria Teresa has done this also. Her diary is very valuable to her and even though some of the girls make fun of her, she doesn't care. She wants to deepen her soul and reflect on her feelings. This connection is strong because the story of Anne Frank and Maria Teresa are very similar, in which they both kept diaries and both named them. Anne named hers Kitty and Maria named hers Little Book. So I can connect these two stories from the two different time periods.

Supposition:

I predict that everything Minerva buried, the letters and books, and Maria Teresa's diary will be found by people who work for Trujillo. Trujillo will probably read them and become angered by these things. I think this will cause them to be in big trouble in which they later get murdered.

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Loren Cloes link
1/12/2014 04:49:30 am

I really like your connection to Anne Frank and how you went into depth about Anne Franks story rather than just saying Anne Frank had a diary too. Also I really like your prediction and I could see that happing in the next few chapters. Its interesting because its true that secrets keep you closer between family and friends however it can also get you into trouble.

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Sandra Mendoza
1/12/2014 03:01:22 pm

I like how you connected that quote to Anne Frank, I also thought of that. I also like your supposition because now that I think about it that might happen.

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Bonnie May link
1/13/2014 07:07:27 am

Jasmin!!

I really like the connection you made between Maria Teresa's little book and Anne Frank's diary...mostly because I made that connection too! I like the way that you pointed out that Anne and Maria had named their books. I hadn't really noticed that, but I think it is an important detail because it shows the connection between the girls and their books. Also, I agree with you that Trujillo will probably find the letters and papers that were hidden and cause trouble for the girls.

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Scot Wade link
1/14/2014 10:03:10 am

Hey Jasmin,
I really liked how you connected Anne Frank with the book. That was the same thing I thought of, so I like your thinking. I also like your description for the chapter, they were a very good summary.

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Zoha Rashid
1/14/2014 11:04:17 am

Hi Jasmin,
I really like your connection that you made! I definitely agree that you think this reminds you of Anne Frank since she also kept a diary, I especially like that you made the connection that they both named their books. I never knew that!

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Anna Ryburn
1/15/2014 09:53:07 am

Hi, Jasmin!
I really like your comparison of Maria Teresa's 'Little Book' to Anne Frank's diary. It shows how not only they both did very similar things, but they were also in a similar situation. I also like your prediction. I agree that at some point in the future, I think Trujillo, or at least someone who works for him, may uncover the buried documents and persecute the sisters because of that.

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zach schroeder
1/15/2014 10:05:00 am

Hey Jasmine, I really like the quote, I feel like it really resembles most of the chapters (3-4). Short and Sweet. I really like the connection you made to Anne Frank. I never thought of it in that way.

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Sol Manuel Garza
1/11/2014 07:44:20 am

Quote
“It turns out that she and Elsa and Lourdes have been going to some secret meetings in Don Horacio’s house… I asked Minerva why she was doing such a dangerous thing. And then, she said the strangest thing. She wanted me to grow up in a free country.” (Alvarez 39)
Significance.
This quote, from chapter three, is by Maria. She comments on Minerva’s involvement in the resistance against Trujillo. Maria was surprised to find out that Minerva was doing something so dangerous. Maria discovers that the reason why her sister is doing something dangerous is because Minerva believes that the resistance is necessary for freedom. This quote is significant because it shows what politicizes Minerva at this point in time. We see that the desire for her family to live in a free country is why she is willing to do “such a dangerous thing”. I wonder if this cause will change into something different. Minerva is still young so it is possible that her ideology will change a little. Minerva acts on what she knows. Once she realized that Trujillo was a bad man in chapter two she decided to take a stand against him
Connection
This part in the book reminded me a little bit of Fahrenheit 451. Specifically, the part in chapter 3 where Hilda is taken by the police reminded me of how Clarisse was killed by the firemen in Fahrenheit 451. Although Hilda and Clarisse have very different personalities they were both openly defiant in their culture. I wonder if Hilda will have any influence on Minerva the way Clarisse had an influence on Montag.

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Peter Fisher link
1/14/2014 10:58:20 am

I had a connection like yours to the book 1984, in that both Trujillo's Dominican Republic and the world of 1984 were police states. I like your connection because it is more specific to the characters; you compare the personalities and fates of two different characters, and base your supposition on their legacies. I wonder if you would be able to elaborate on your supposition a little more . . . (for example, I haven't read Fahrenheit 451, and I don't know who Clarisse is) Great job!

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Celina Enriquez link
1/11/2014 09:13:41 am

Quote:"Here ends my Little Book
Goodbye for now, not forever(I hope)"

Significance:

In both chapters three and four it is going more in-depth about the personalities of the two sisters Minerva and Maria Tersa. The true them gets explained and the good/rough times they had both came across. In chapter 3 Maria Teresa ends up getting very involved in a diary that she had received from Minerva , which helps us to put ourselves in her shoes. Minerva specifically got this for Maria Teresa, in Maria Teresa's opinion it is able to make others have constant reflections after one another. In this chapter Maria tends to seem very loyal and obedient within others, the diary had really helped Minerva not only to reflect but in order to let out her feelings/emotions. In chapter four, Patria had wanted to become a nun since she had been younger, in which when she was younger she had became very religious. Patria expresses lots of emotions within this chapter because she ends up having her third child that she had lost. After the death of the third baby had occurred she had begun to lose faith within God while becoming less and less religious.

Connection:

This quote is in the very end of chapter three. Which is when Maria Teresa had to give up on her little diary. A connection I can make is when I was a little girl around 7 or 8, I had my own diary in which was called my secret diary it had a key lock chain because I live with my 3 older brothers. I had liked to keep my diary secrets to myself. One time I had accidentally forgot about my diary it had been wide open in which my brother had read my diary secrets even though my brother knew it wasn't right. After this had happened I never had felt real comfortable on writing down secrets in mind I had learned to keep the very important in my head and reflect on the other when necessary .

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Sandra Mendoza
1/12/2014 02:52:35 pm

I like the quote you picked, that quote stood out to me too. Also, I like how you were able to connect it to yourself. Your significance is also very descriptive.

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Ashley Seymour link
1/13/2014 10:03:42 am

Hey Celina,
I really like the quote you chose because it's one of the biggest parts in chapter 3&4. I also really like the connection you made from the book to how your older brothers red your diary I think it's kinda hard for people to connect the book to their past life but you did a great job.

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Tanner Ragan link
1/13/2014 11:03:28 am

I liked how you connected your life with Maria and you were accurate based off of the situation. I also liked how you pointed out Patria's faith in God and how she went through a lot because I am a bit curious about her personality throughout the next chapters.

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Miranda Vega link
1/14/2014 01:21:46 pm

Celina,
I in your significance paragraph I like how you saw that Minerva had started to lose her faith. I didn't see these chapters in this way before. I also love how in your connection paragraph you related Maria's "little book" to your own child hood when you would do almost the same thing as her. It's cool to be able to relate your own stories to a book!

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zach schroeder
1/15/2014 10:06:34 am

Hey Celina, I really liked the quote you used, It really sums up chapters 3 and for. I also really liked how your connection was connected to yourself, very creative. Good job.

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Peter Fisher link
1/11/2014 12:28:05 pm

Quote:
"I see a guardia, and I think, who have you killed. I hear a police siren, and I think who is going to be killed. See what I mean (Alvarez 39)?"

Significance:
The third and fourth chapters give us insights into the lives of Maria Teresa and Patria Mercedes. We have already read about the standpoints of Dede - albeit from 25 years after Trujillo fell - and Minerva. Chapter three provides a very fresh perspective on the conflict already happening in Minerva's life, since it is from the standpoint of a ten-year-old who has no idea what is going on. In chapter four, Patria is represented in first person, and we get a glimpse of her life thus far, and a possible motive for her to strike out.

Connection:
I want to connect my quote about the police being completely at the beck and call of a corrupt government to the book 1984, by George Orwell. 1984 frightened a lot of people because no one liked the idea of the police working to the disadvantage of the people. The main example of this from 1984 was the "thought police," who were tasked with reading the minds of anyone who stepped in range of their sensors - and most people were in range of their sensors almost 100% of the time, since televisions worked both ways - and reporting any thought that was remotely untoward to the government. When the thought police arrested you, you reported to their "courtroom" and were never seen again. This sounds a lot like Trujillo's "police," who actually did act as the public defenders, but were given another secret, top-priority mission: track down any dissidents and make them disappear.

Supposition:
Because we have seen the viewpoints of all of the sisters, something will happen to draw the sisters into the mysteries of Trujillo's corruption in the next chapter, or sixth chapter if Alvarez decides to give Dede's view on the matter in the fifth chapter, as Dede has only been represented in present tense thus far. Either way, I expect that the action will begin with Minerva, since she is the only one of the sisters to be caught up in the revolution already. Patria, having some frustration already due to her baby's death, and maybe some positive motivation after finding her faith all over again, will probably be the first to join Minerva.

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Natasha Oslinger link
1/14/2014 06:52:27 am

Hi Peter,
I like the way you give detailed answers with strong language and the connection you made between 1984 and ITTOTB is a strong one. The police working to the disadvantage of the people in 1984 is very similar to the way the Trujillo's police would track down any dissidents and make them disappear. Your idea of what is to come next in the upcoming chapters is similar to what I believe to happen, so I'm interested to see what will happen next.
-Natasha

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Sol Manuel Garza
1/14/2014 11:40:40 am

Hello Peter.
I really like your connection to 1984. I have not read that book yet but am now interested in reading it. I remember similar “thought police” in a book I read, Fahrenheit 451. In this book they were called firemen and they burned any books they found. It was their way from preventing people from being exposed to ways of thinking that were not main stream. This seems to be a common theme in all dictatorships.

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Evan Mark
1/15/2014 07:15:12 am

Your supposition was great. It was detailed and realistic. I agree totally, or I did, before I kept reading and found that Mate was the second to "officially" join the revolution. It was cool that you connected it to something outside of class, which made it far more interesting to read because it wasn't something I had heard before.

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Ashley Seymour link
1/11/2014 01:29:21 pm

Quote: I should have desisted, I should not have seen what I saw.

Significance: The following chapters that we just red 3&4, I think is us seeing Maria's life with her husband and the mistakes she makes as a grown women. When she deciders she wants to open up her babies grave, I feel like that wasn't one of her smartest choices because that just made her think more about it. I also feel like when she moved out of her moms house she felt like she was able to break out and do whatever she wants and that was when she slowly started loosing her faith when she felt that because she got a husband she's all on her own. I think at the end of chapter 3 is when we readers really get that feel that the little girl she was is gone, I get this thought from when she says goodbye to her diary.

Connection: I can connect this quote to my life because I remember multiple times when I've made mistakes and I wish I could take them back just like how Maria wishes she didn't see her dead baby. I can connect chapter 4 to today because I think that certain people start to have relationships at young ages and get married young also just like how Maria and Patria got married young.

Supposition: I think in the next couple chapters Maria ands Patria are going to get a divorce because it seems that Maria doesn't true him enough and I also think this cause she's going to start gaining her with back and get to busy with that instead of spending time with Patria.

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Sophie Godarzi link
1/13/2014 12:22:06 pm

Hi Ashley,
You did really great on your Significance and Connection paragraph. I really like how you connect the book to your own life and this proves you are trying to understand Patrica's point of view. I also agree with the supposition you made, because many clues are given in chapters 3 and 4 that would lead to this conclusion. Great job!

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Celina Enriquez link
1/14/2014 09:44:33 am

Hello Ashley,
I really enjoyed reading your views on the overall two chapters great point of view another part that had stood out to me was the fantastic connection you had made within your own life. Your supposition was well thought out shows you had discovered the clues that were risen I feel that this will occur in the next chapter. Overall Good Job!

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Miranda Vega link
1/14/2014 01:27:36 pm

Ashely,
I love your significance and connection paragraphs! I also agree with your supposition. I have remembered a lot of times that I wish I could take a lot of things back. I love how you connected this with your own life.

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Loren Cloes link
1/12/2014 04:43:12 am

Quote :
"You'd give anything away,your clothes, your food your toys.You had no sense of holding on to things."

Significance:
In these two chapters the reader gets to take a look at the other two out of the four sisters. These two chapters are very important because it shows that Marina Teresa was passionate on writing more that interacting with others. However Patira is more in touch with her feelings and enjoys the company of others a little bit more than Marina Teresa. This quote is significant because it describes Patira in her child hood and it also describes her as a young adult. Also it shows that Patria has to be the role model and the support system for her mother and sisters even though she went through a loss of her own child. However this quote shows Patria's growth and understanding of how to hold on to things that have value. Just because she does not always have a sense of what has personal value does not make her a bad person. In fact it makes her a better person because it proves that she is not selfish.

Connection:
After reading this quote I mad multiple connections. The first connection Night by Elie Weasel, when Elie wanted to hold onto his shoes because that was the only thing left that he had was familiar from his old life. Another connection I made was to myself. I did not know the value of personal items when I was younger. The summer before I started sixth grade I cleaned out my room, I was getting ready for all of my middle school cloths,books,games and more and at the time I wanted to get rid of everything but in the end I ended up keeping most of what was in my room because I realized that there was so many memories and moments that I didn't want to let go of at the time. I did the same thing last summer but by then I was ready to get rid of all of my child hood toys,books,games,movies and cloths. Now today my room looks like high school and i'm proud of it.

Supposition:
I predict the next couple chapters the sisters will start to stir up trouble with Trujillo and the story will start to lead up to what got all the sisters accept Dede killed. Also I think that Patira and her husband will have another child because he said that they would try again to have another child.

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Jasmin Diaz link
1/13/2014 07:11:05 am

Hey Loren!
You described the two chapters very well and I like getting to see your perspective on everything. I also like the connection between the book Night and yourself. It was interesting to see you connect this to yourself. Good job Loren!

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Natalie Au link
1/14/2014 07:02:57 am

Hi Loren!
You did a really good job explaining chapters 3 and 4, and also comparing/contrasting the personalities of the two sisters. I also really like your connection. I love how you used yourself as a connection, and explained a specific moment that happened in your life.

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Chase Leon
1/12/2014 08:00:11 am

Quote: “I should have desisted, I should not have seen what I saw. My child, a bundle of swarming ants!”

Significance:
In chapter 3, Minerva eventually confesses the truth that she and her friends have been meeting at Don Horacio's house for secret meetings.Then the guards come to the school to look for Hilda, but couldn't find her because she was pretending like a student of Inmaculada Concepcion. Then she meets Pedrito, and as washing his feet, she falls in love with him.They move to San Jose de Conuco, and gives birth to Nelson and Norris. Pedrito sneaks out of the bed, and Patria follows him, resulting in seeing her dead son covered with ants.I think these are important because it makes up these two chapters and it stuck with me through the two chapters. What parts stand out is when Pedrito sneaks out and Partia follows him and when doing that they see her dead son covered with ants. Why I thought that stood out was because I'm imagining me just walking out of my house and seeing that. So I think it would be insane to see that, What matters was that she meets Pedrito and falls in love with him, We find out that Minerva is having secret meetings. What gives it away is when something new leads up to something that is going to be another big part of the book or an important part. Such as when she meets Pedrito and falls in love, then Pedrito sneaks out and sees there dead son covered with ants. Such as that. Why people should care is there is always new things that happens. I don’t think it is really relevant to anyone because they are the only people I know who went through that stuff.

Connection:
How I can connect this is when Romeo and Juliet just fall in love in sight, And thats pretty much what happened when they fall in love. I do not have any personal connection that I could draw from the two chapters. From what I read nothing connects to the learning. These two chapters haven't connected me from what I read because I don’t read unless I have to so I don’t have book to connect it to. When Patria talks about her parents are fighting and aren't doing good, and when I read that I thought about how much people goes through their parents fighting and so I thought it connected with the world really.

Supposition:
I think that Patria’s parents are going to get divorced, and something bad is going to go with Pedrito in some way. Pedrito was a person who we met and now Maria and Pedrito are two lovers so I think it influenced the story a bit more.

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Celina Enriquez link
1/14/2014 09:58:58 am

Hey Chase,
I really enjoyed that while reading the significance and your views on the two chapters you had been very detailed. I also really liked how you had connected Patria and Pedrito to Romeo and Juliet because both these couples end up falling in love at first sight.

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Sam Klein
1/15/2014 11:06:53 am

Hey Chase,
I really enjoyed reading your post, I think you did a very good job on giving the significance and I think eveyone could tell the hard work you put into this. I really like how you connected it to Romeo and Juliet because we all read that together so eveyone can understand what you are talking about.

Natasha Oslinger link
1/12/2014 08:38:28 am

Quote:
"It is the Lord's will," I agreed, but the words sounded hollow to my ear.

Connection:
Chapters three and four are mostly about Patria, and in those chapters we see her change and develop a lot. In the beginning, Patria relates that she has always believed in God, and she is planing on becoming a nun. At 14, she goes to school at Inmaculada Concepcion, and it seems as though she will be going to convent. But, she later realizes her 'calling' is not to become a nun and retain abstinence, it is to get married and become a mother. So, she married Pedrito and has two children, but when she is pregnant with her third, she miscarries. After losing her baby, she wonders if she is being punished for giving up on her religious calling. Patria feels herself loosing faith in God, then, by the end of the chapter, she doubts his existence all together, which is much different than the way she felt at the beginning.

Connection:
I can connect the way Patria begins to loose faith in God to the way Minerva lost faith in Trujillo. For both it took a tragedy, Patria loosing her child and Minerva discovering the secret horrors of Trujillo, to realize that who they once worshiped was not what they thought of them to be. I can also connect this to the way the many Holocaust victims and survivors felt when they were in concentration camps. At the Museum of Tolerance, I saw a Holocaust survivor giving a speech; she said that in the death camp, she lost all faith in God. She said she knew it was not God that built the camp itself, but she knew that if there is a God, he has abandoned us. This is similar to the way Patria felt.

Supposition:
I think Patria will get her faith back and become a nun. I also think Trujillo will fall in love with one of the sisters, but who ever it is will just pretend to love him so they can take him down.

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Nidhal Dawood
1/13/2014 01:07:02 pm

Hello Natasha!

Most people felt that way in the holocaust and I feel such sweet sorrow for them because I know deep, down in their hearts that they know its not God who is doing wrong but Satan and evil behind the doings of the Nazi's. Its actually quite depressing to think about, imagine how could you live for so long believing in promises that were not true like Trujillo.

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Andres Testas link
1/14/2014 09:21:51 am

Hey Natasha ( you toke my quote) I like how you connected it to the Holocaust and how you described the faith loss in both Night and this one. I also liked your supposition on Patria returning to be a nun. Good Job

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Anna Ryburn
1/12/2014 09:11:40 am

"I turned around and saw the packed pews, hundreds of weary, upturned faces, and it was as if I’d been facing the wrong way all my life. My faith stirred. It kicked and somersaulted in my belly, coming alive. I turned back and touched my hand to the dirty glass.
“Holy Mary, Mother of God,” I joined in.
I stared at her pale, pretty face and challenged her. Here I am, Virgencita. Where are you?
And I heard her answer me with the coughs and cries and whispers of the crowd: Here, Patria Mercedes, I'm here, all around you. I've already more than appeared."
SIGNIFICANCE: Chapters 3 and 4 show how the other two sisters, Maria Teresa and Patria, are learning of the suffering that is going on in their own lives and in everyone else's. Maria, who at first thought Trujillo was a good leader, is shocked to learn about his true nature, but it is also very eye opening to her. I think this shows how sometimes people can become so used to bad things, they don't even realize that the way they are living isn't right. Patria begins her life as someone who is very devoted to her religion, but as things progress and her life gets worse, she begins to lose faith.

CONNECTION: I can relate Patria's loss of faith to Elie, from the book Night. In both cases, the character starts out being very devoted to faith, but as they and the people around them suffer more and more, they start to challenge that faith. I also connect this to TKAM, because closer to the beginning of both the stories, both Scout and Maria Teresa were still too innocent to realize all the horrible and unfair things that were happening around them. By the end of the two stories, their eyes are opened to the suffering in their society.

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Peter Fisher link
1/14/2014 11:04:31 am

You have a very strong connection to Night. Patria and Elie had very similar stories; both were persecuted by a dictator, both lost people they loved, and both lost their faith because of their regimes. Both also did remarkable things in their lives: Patria was influential in ending Trujillo's regime, and Elie Wiesel survived the Holocaust, and went on to document his experiences in Night. Don't forget the supposition!

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Natalie Au link
1/12/2014 10:57:17 am

Quote:

"How could our loving all-powerful Father allow us to suffer so? I looked up, challenging Him."

Significance:

Chapters 3 and 4 are significant because they narrate the actions and thoughts of Maria Teresa and Patria Mercedes. In the third chapter, Minerva confesses to her younger sister Maria that she has been sneaking off with some of her friends to have secret meetings at Don Horacio's house. The fourth chapter is about Patria, and how she waited for her calling to see if she should became a nun, but she turned down the offer and instead became a wife and mom. After she gave birth to a still-born baby, she started to lose faith. These two chapters give you insights on two of the Mirabel girls.

Connection:

The quote that I chose was about Patria losing faith once she gave birth to a dead baby, after being so devoted to faith her whole life. I can connect Patria with Elie Wiesel. Both of them were so loyal to their faith until something tragic happens to them. Patria gave birth to a dead baby, and Elie Wiesel and his family were taken over by the Nazis and were sent to concentration camps to suffer and die. Having something so horrible happen to them makes the both of them ask the question, why would someone so great like Him, do horrible things to them. This makes them question their faith and even his existence.

Supposition:

I think that because Maria gave birth to a dead baby, she will start to resent God and not believe he even exists. I think that maybe she will become so angry that she will start to hate Trujillo as much as Minerva. I think she will soon join Minerva in her secret meetings.

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Lizzy Young link
1/13/2014 05:07:11 am

Hi Tallie,
Great connection. I found it really interesting that you connected Elie's story and Patria's. I would have never made that connection. I think that Minerva will continue with her sneaky practices against Trujillo, but I am not convinced that Patria will rebel and join her.

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Jasmin Diaz link
1/13/2014 05:19:40 am

Hey Tallie!
You were very descriptive in writing about Maria Teresa and Patria. This gives me a better understanding about what the main idea of the chapters are. I love the connections you made between Patria and Elie Wiesel. It opened my eyes to the connection of both og them losing faith. I also like your supposition that they will lose faith and become angry. Good job!

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Lizzy Young link
1/12/2014 12:34:06 pm

Quote: "'I worry that you're losing your faith,' I told her. 'That's our pearl of great price; you know, without it,we're nothing.'"

Significance: I think that chapter four, specifically is significant because, we are told about Patria's feelings and her weakness in faith, and in the end, she regains her faith and grows as a person. This is significant because we can relate with the characters and watch them grow. Also in chapter three, we hear about the youngest sister, Maria Teresa, going off to school with her sisters, and growing as well. I'm not really sure why this quote stood out to me. It seemed important because of a sister giving her younger sister advice, and I think that's easy to relate to. This could be applied to many situations. It doesn't necessarily have to be between two sisters, it could be between two siblings in general, or between any family members, or even between friends.

Connection: I can relate this to me and my brothers because we they are always looking after me and giving me advice. My mom does the same. My family is very tightly knit, like the Maribel family is. I feel that their family is more religion based and ours isn't so much, but we love each other just as much and look out for each other. Also, we stick with each other through the good and the bad. My family supports each other in hard times like Patria's family supported her when she lost her baby.

Supposition: I think that the biggest influence on a character so far in the book is on Patria, and Maria Teresa. Patria is finding her way in her faith and I think that after losing her baby, it will be hard for her to go back to normal and have stable faith, but that the experience will make her character grow. Maria Teresa is experiencing crime for the first time. In school when her sister and her friends are lying and running off places they shouldn't be, it does influence Maria Teresa, especially in her young age. I think she looks up to her sisters and she thinks that it's wrong for her sister to behave the way she does, but it will have an effect on what she thinks is and isn't acceptable.

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Nikki
1/13/2014 07:17:57 am

Hey Girlie!
I really liked how you connected the book to your personal life! (That was uber cool....I can totally connect too :) I also liked your supposition. I think its interesting that you siad that Maria will have her judgement influenced by her older siblings. Did you make this supposition based off a personal experience or others that you have seen have this expirance?

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Carol Cabrera link
1/14/2014 11:39:05 am

Lizzy,
I appreciate your personal connection to the chapters! I also like how you use evidence to back up your supposition paragraph. The writing about the pain describing Patria's stillborn child is particularly depressing to me.

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Josh Chiero link
1/12/2014 12:39:04 pm

"Hilda has been caught! She was grabbed by the police while trying to leave the convent. Everyone in Don Horacio’s meeting group has been told to destroy anything that would make them guilty."

Significance:
In chapters three and 3&4 we learn a lot about Maria and Patricia. We see what they dealt with growing up and how their life was. Minerva tells her sister about sneaking out to have meetings at Don Horciao's house and in the next chapter we learn that Maria wanted to become a nun but instead had kids and one of her children died during birth. She was very involved with god and church before this but after the incident, she lost her connection with god. These two chapters were really important because we learned about the past and it gave us a good idea on these two characters. It sets up the rest of the story for the reader. They had a very hard life. I chose this quote because it shows the seriousness of the situation and how Minerva panicked and made Maria bury the book because it mentioned Hilda.

Connection:
This immediately reminds me of the Anne Frank Story. Anne Frank also had a diary which she very often wrote in during hard times in her life. She one day hoped to touch someone with the story which Maria also wanted. I also think of Night by Elie Wiesel because Elie mentions at one point "Why would god torture us like this" and he loses all faith in god. In hard times people look up to god and question him about their situation.

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Josh Chiero link
1/12/2014 12:41:46 pm

Supposition:
In the next few chapters I believe we will hear more about Maria and Patricia and it will elaborate more about their relationship. I also thing that other things will go downhill and things will only get worse. Trujillo with become a stronger presence in the book and I believe someone will do something to hurt him

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Natalie Boyle link
1/14/2014 01:37:35 pm

Hey Josh! You did a great job explaining the importance of these 2 chapters. I really liked how you explained your quote as well. I think the connect you made between Anne Frank and Elie Wiesel was very interesting. You connected Elie and Patria not just on a surface level but showed how their beliefs and feelings changed. I hadn't thought of it like that before. I agree with your supposition. Great work :)

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Aaron Nguyen link
1/12/2014 12:58:33 pm

Quote: I asked Minerva why she was doing such a dangerous thing. And then, she said the strangest thing. She wanted me to grow up in a free country.

“And it isn't that already?” I asked. My chest was getting all tight. I felt one of my asthma attacks coming on.

Significance: These two chapters are significant because they really show the difference between the youngest and the oldest sister's personalities. Maria is very young, open, and easily manipulated into believing things. For example, she is very light, cheery, and she sees Trujillo as a hero, because she grew up in the environment in which he is praised. However, as Minerva reveals the truth, a part of Maria's childhood dies a little. Patria's entry is almost dark. After reading the humorous little diary of a child, it felt weird to transition to a story coming from a mature adult. Overall, I felt like the chapters contrasted.

Connection: I can connect chapter 3 to TKAM. I feel like Maria is almost like scout. In the begging of chapter three, Maria is almost like an innocent little girl who sees no wrongs in her life. However, as the year goes by, she learns more an more about the lies about Trujillo and she almost grows up from the one thing Minerva tells her. In the beginning of TKAM, Scout is an innocent little girl who doesn't really know much about the world around her and kind of just focuses on her own world. However, when she learns about Tom Robinson's case, she also learns about the bad and darkness in her world. In summary, both Maria and Scout seem to get their childhood and innocence taken away from them by the evil that is in their worlds.

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Chase Leon
1/14/2014 07:28:18 am

Hello Aaron!
I can relate to your connection because I also think that Maria is like scout too! But I think your connection is really good because you can relate with a lot of things in the book and I think its cool that you can make those connections that other people didn't even think about. But all and all good connection!

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Aaron Nguyen link
1/14/2014 09:26:34 am

Supposition: I think that Maria will eventually grow out of the fantasy of Trujillo's rule, and eventually grow to hate him almost as much as Minerva. Also, I feel like Maria is going to become almost adult-like towards the end of the book.

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Sophie Godarzi link
1/12/2014 02:03:52 pm

Quote:

"It is so strange now I know something I’m not supposed to know. Everything looks just a little different. I see a guardia, and I think, who have you killed. I hear a police siren, and I think who is going to be killed. See what I mean?"

Significance:

In these two chapters it introduces the two other sisters of Dede, Maria Teresa, and Patria. In the third chapter I discovered Maria Teresa to be very childish in both her in writing and thoughts. She seems to question ideas often and this may be important in the future chapters because her curiosity may lead her to stumble upon misfortune. In the fourth chapter, it stunned me to find Patria losing faith in God because during the interview her sister described Dede described her to be extremely religious. This stuns me because siblings are usually close and a change in worship should be noticeable or talked about. I also noticed how in chapter 3, Maria Teresa gave a clue to what would happen to Patrica's baby. This stood out to me because all chapters seem to interlink with each other and this creates room for several upcoming clues.

Connection:

Before we move on to the next chapter where we get a deeper understanding of what really happened to Patria's baby,Maria Teresa writes about the death of her sister's baby. When the author does this, she uses the literary device, foreshadowing, which was used also in the classic play, Romeo and Juliet.

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Nikki
1/13/2014 04:14:49 am

Hey Sophie!
I really like your response. I specifically like how you point out that literary device connection between Romeo & Juliet and ITTOTB. I think the way the text is worded helps us see this foreshadowing fairly clearly and is in some spots are foreshadowing the same events in both texts. Have you noticed any other literary connections between this text and Romeo & Juliet?

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Ashley Seymour link
1/13/2014 10:24:38 am

Hey Sophie,
I really like the thoughts you had in your significance because it was very detailed and how you acknowledged the fact that normal sisters have very close religion but she started growing apart from her religion and I think that the connection made to R&J was really interesting. Great Job

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Johana Guatemala link
1/13/2014 01:54:00 pm

Hey Sophie!
I agree how the writer did a great job bringing Maria's childlike sense into the chapter. The foreshadowing caused my mind to roll into a suspension whether it would come true. The secrecy between the sisters and their mother also seemed odd to me because the way they are first described they have a really tight bond that now seems to be bending. Comparing the writers fashion to Shakespeare is something I did not think of but she sure does know how to keep the mind entertained.

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Sandra Mendoza
1/12/2014 02:35:46 pm

Quote:
"Here ends my Little Book. Goodbye for now, not forever (I hope)"

Significance:
In chapters three and four we get to know more about Patria and María Teresa. In chapter three we get to know María Teresa. María Teresa has a diary in which she reflects on and we get to see things from her point of view. In chapter four we learn about Patria. Patria is very religious. When she her third child is born dead she starts feeling depressed. Patria then starts loosing faith and becomes less religious.

Connections:
I can connect this quote to Anne Frank from the Holocaust. Anne Frank has her own dairy like María Teresa. They both kind of end the dairy the same way. Anne Frank had to leave her dairy because she had to leave to a concentration camp and she didn't know if she was going to come back or not. Just like Anne, María Teresa didn't know if she was also going to write on her dairy again. I can also connect Patria to Elie from the book Night because in the beginning of the book or chapter they were both very religious. Throughout the book Elie started loosing faith and throughout the chapter Patria was becoming less religious too.

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Sandra Mendoza
1/12/2014 02:42:26 pm

Supposition:
I think Patria is going to become more religious, since she was loosing faith because in the end of chapter four she is praying with her mom. I also think María Teresa might write on her dairy again because it did seem like she really like reflecting in her dairy.

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Daniela Canseco link
1/14/2014 02:06:56 pm

Sandra,
I really like the quote you chose because it is a very important one, it is also a very emotional one because it's when she has to burry it for a while. Your significance is not that long but it has a lot of important things and it is very detailed so that is good. I really like your connection because the way you connected it to Anne Frank because of the diary and yea I thought that was really good. Well good job.

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Jacob Fikes
1/15/2014 09:55:53 am

Sandra,
I like the detail that you went in on for your significance of the book, you both summarize and go into why the quote is significant very well. I also like your connection to Anne Frank's diary, very well described. Good Job!

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Nidhal Dawood
1/12/2014 03:10:47 pm

Quote: " So Minerva said I was too young to be told some things. That made me angry." and ( sorry I couldn't do only one quote) " She says it was not really right to read it, but sometimes you have to do something wrong for a higher good. "

Significance: The major thing in these chapters that got my attention was when Minerva started getting into a lot of trouble and being a rebellious teenager because she was hanging out with the wrong crowd. I think that happens so much now in days people don't have any morals or boundaries anymore for respect because they simply don't care. The important thing that stroke me with relief is that Minerva realized what she was doing, lying more importantly and stopping right after her new friend Hilda left. The part in chapter four that I find very valuable because of the meaning it holds is when Patria loses her baby and how devastated she must have been to go through that being the mother she already is. As a woman I feel sympathy and compassion on her heart and hope that she sees a brighter side to every situation that feels like shes trapped and depressed. Everything happens for a reason, and I feel like she should know that.

Connection: Minerva and I share almost the same likes and personality very outgoing, and finds a way around people, not to mention our nosy siblings. I have two little sisters just like her one is 10 and the other 8 and they ALWAYS want to know whats going on aside that non of it is their business. In the end even though we might get into arguments over pointless things I will never stop loving them and I know when they grow a little older we are going to get along much better because being the oldest of the siblings somethings its good for them not to know until they mature.

The second quote is Minerva is talking about doing something that's wrong but for a good reason. All throughout middle school I wanted to become a lawyer, because I loved the idea of defending people and winning a case, all eyes were on me and I could feel the victory. Also, arguing with my parents and sisters some of the time just added to my reasoning of being stubborn even though I shouldn't have and most of the time I was wrong.. Up until the beginning of eighth grade my aspiration of wanting to become a lawyer faded after a visit I went to go see my aunt, uncle, and cousins in Arizona. She sat me down and asked me what I wanted to study in life and I responded with a " law and order major" she asked me why and I listed all my reasons. My aunt is a smart woman she opened my mind to what could have been. She asked " what if you were defending a criminal and you personally thought he/she is guilty" ? She got me thinking and I found myself speechless. I couldn't handle that lying to a person when I think they don't deserve the right to freedom because of the past bad things they have done. Sometimes in life you have to do something wrong in order for the outcome to be good like protecting or fighting for what you believe in, however it all comes with a price so if you don't know how to play the game, don't play at all.

Supposition: I think that in during the next chapters the sisters father is going to introduce them to the " other woman" and they are all going to have a hard time appreciating her or making her feel welcome because she most certainly will not feel like a part of their family.


Reply
Johana Guatemala link
1/12/2014 04:07:17 pm

Quote:
“I asked Minerva why she was doing such a dangerous thing. And then, she said the strangest thing. She wanted me to grow up in a free country. “And it isn’t that already?” I asked. My chest was getting all tight.”


Significance:
In these two chapter, we here from Maria’s childhood perspective and Patria losing and finding herself. Hearing Maria’s childhood perspective is important because at first it shows how brainwashed the kids are into believing El Jefe is like God but later Maria starts to question every step she takes, every sound she hears, and everything she believes after Minerva tells her why she acts against him. Hearing Patria, the Catholic role model, wife, and mother, speak her life, how she made every decision, and how influenced her life is from religion is important because her life choices are completely different from Minerva and throughout her current situation she stills tried fighting in the name of faith like her mom.

Connection:
Throughout the chapters, Minerva gives, protects, help, and does just about anything for Maria and in the quote she says she wants her to grow up in a free country otherwise not the way she did. I can relate Minerva to my mom because my mom came to this country to give her children a better life than what she had. My mom always argued with my dad over a few things like hitting us, forcing us to finish food we did not like, making sure we all felt equal and as you could imagine my dad would be on the bad side but he really did not see t like that until after my mom would point it out to him. Love is really strong; Minerva did not want Maria growing up trapped and scared of a cage in which no one was allowed to chirp.

Supposition:
I predict Chea and Patria will no longer find a shoulder to cry on in their religion because their life has been on the down side and since they have always been faithful, good, and wholesome they will start asking why them.

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Natalie Boyle link
1/14/2014 01:32:16 pm

Johana! You did a great job explaining the importance of these chapters. I especially loved how personal and deep your connection was. It can be hard to share things like that but you did and that is awesome. The metaphor you put at the end was a great use of imagery and irony. I agree with your supposition.Great work! :)

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Dominic Dudley link
1/13/2014 09:48:56 am

Quote: "I stared at her pale, pretty face and challenged her. Here I am, Virgencita. Where are you?"

Significance: In these two chapters we learn about how Maria Teresa learned about Trujillo and Patria finding and losing her faith. These are significant because they sort of show the revelations that both the girls experience and how it affects their outlook on their country.

Connection: Patria and Maria are very similar characters to Jerl from Sword of Shannarra. He also starts off accepting what's going on and after a while becomes a lot more questioning and finally has a revelation and sees the whole world differently.

Supposition: I think that the Mirabel sisters and their families will be targeted by the government after pulling some sort of stunt like the one with the bow.

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Tanner Ragan link
1/13/2014 11:09:02 am

Dominic,
I really liked how you were really simple explaining the significance because it is very true at the same time! The two chapters took an affect on Maria's and Patria's view on the country.

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Douglas Hunter link
1/14/2014 08:53:24 am

Dominic Alexander Dudley (big poppa)

I think that Patria, and Elie Wiesel are both very similar because in both of the books they both had a firsthand look at death, and their faith was shattered, but even when this broke inside of them they found a new strength to keep on going.

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Josh Chiero link
1/14/2014 01:31:25 pm

Dominic,
I liked the way you summed up the chapters and gave a me a good idea of what went on in these two chapters very briefly. Your connection is very unique and I I like how you feel strong about your supposition and used the bow incident to foreshadow

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Miranda Vega link
1/13/2014 01:15:24 pm

Quote:


“It is so strange now I know something I’m not supposed to know. Everything looks just a little different.

I see a guardia, and I think, who have you killed. I hear a police siren, and I think who is going to be killed. See what I mean?”


Significance:


In these two chapters I think that we get to see that according to the people Minerva’s hanging out with her personality becomes more mischievous, curious, and defiant in a bad way. She has started telling lies, hiding people, and sneaking around based on a person who has shown the same traits in a stronger way. I now have seen that Minerva changes herself without being conscious of it. I have also seen that writing has become a big part of Miria. She even asks herself that now her little book is going to be buried what is going to fill that part of her soul.


Connection:


A lot of times people have to choose to keep secrets. Whether they are kept from parents, bosses, teachers, or even government they are usually kept from the higher authority. Someone who has more power than the person keeping the secret. This is usually the case because the person could get punished. It can also be the higher authority keeping the secrets from the people below them. If the higher authority’s secret got out then people would think they could defy them and trust would probably be lost.


Supposition:


I think that in the next chapters somehow Trujillo will find the journal & documents that Minerva had buried, and Trujillo will begin to search for the girls.

Reply
Zoha Rashid
1/14/2014 10:57:17 am

Miranda,
I really like your connections to the real world especially because anyone can connect to it. I definitely agree when you said that you thing Trujillo will find where the journal is buried!

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Dominic Dudley link
1/15/2014 10:21:41 am

Miranda,

I like how you connected the book to the real world without just saying a specific topic. I think that your supposition is pretty vague but it's mostly solid.

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Jacob Fikes
1/13/2014 01:32:42 pm

Quote:

"I am not saying I don’t love our president, because I do. It’s like if I were to find out Papá did something wrong. I would still love him, wouldn’t I?"

Significance:

I think this quote is one of the most significant parts of the assigned reading because it portrays how Maria Teresa is slowly beginning to question the methods of the president she looks up to. It was the first time that she was angry with him, but felt that because she thinks that what he is doing is right, she disregards it. I also find it interesting that she compares the president with her father even though she doesn't have a strong connection with him.

Connection:

I can connect this to Hitler's rule in Germany. The people in Germany probably reacted the same way if Hitler did something wrong or evil that the people didn't really agree with. For example, he took away most of the peoples'(who weren't Jews) rights because he thought by limiting what a normal citizen could do, he could easily control them.

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Douglas Hunter link
1/14/2014 08:49:35 am

Hey Jacob

I think that the quote you chose was particularly powerful, because you can really see how the children of the Dominican Republic are so brainwashed that they think that Trujillo is this semi divine figure who has their best interests at heart.

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Dominic Dudley link
1/15/2014 10:25:52 am

Jacob,

I like how you picked up on how Maria Teresa was losing her faith in Trujillo. That was pretty subtle. You didn't put a supposition in, though. So remember to do that next time.

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Alejandra Sandoval
1/13/2014 02:43:42 pm

"I think it’s because I have three older sisters, and so I’ve grown up quick. I knew how to read before I even started school! In fact, Sor Asunción put me in fourth, though really, I should have been in third with the other tens.

My penmanship is also very pretty as you will have noticed. I’ve won the writing prize twice, and I would have this week, too, but I decided to leave some i’s undotted. It doesn’t help with the other girls if you are best all the time.

At first, Mamá didn’t even want me to leave home. But she agreed it made sense for me to come since this is Minerva’s last year at Inmaculada Concepción, and so I would have family here to look after me my first year.

Don’t tell anyone: I don’t like it here that much. But after we talked Mama into letting me board, I have to pretend. At least, Minerva is here with me even if she sleeps in another hall.

And you are here with me too, my dear Little Book."

Significance: In these two chapter I think what feels important is that that Dedè is starting to realize who Trujillo really is. It feels important because her sister is trying to do everything she can for Dedè and keep her safe. A part that stand out to me is when Minerva tells her that the reason why she is doing something dangerous is so she can grow up in a free country. It stands out to me because it shows how powerful family and sibling love can be. You can do the most dangerous things for a loved one.

Connection: I can connect this piece back to when Hitler was a dictator because many Jews didn't know what was happening. They thought Hitler wouldn't do such a cruel thing. Eventually they did know the truth behind Hitler's plans.

Supposition: I think that in the next few chapters, something bad will happen to Minerva and slowly, Dedè will start to realize who Trujillo really is.

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Chase Leon
1/14/2014 06:53:57 am

Hello Alejandra! :D
Well to tell you, a quote that you chose is too long. A quote is a sentence or two, now a whole paragraph. But your connection doesn't tell us what you are talking about when you just talk about when the jews didn't know anything during the holocaust. It seems like you don't know what your talking about. So next time tell us what it actually connects to in the book instead of just saying what it connects to. But I think the supposition was good because Its a good statement of what may happen next.

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Daniela Canseco
1/14/2014 01:55:55 pm

Alejandraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa Sandovaaaaaaaaal!!!
Hey, so I like the quotes you chose because I feel that they are the most important in chapter 3. And I like your significance because it is long and detailed. I also like your connection because I also connected it to the Holocaust and it makes sense. So good job ")

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Scot Wade link
1/13/2014 04:07:36 pm

"Here ends my Little Book. Goodbye fro now, not forever ( I hope )"
Significance
In chapters three and four we get to know more about Patria and Maria. Maria would use a little book that she would talk through as stuff accruing around heron her view. In chapter four Patria learned that her newborn child had died.
Connection
Although, my connection has nothing to do with literature or history. I found that I instantly thought of my family. Both of my grandmas lost a child at or before birth. My family has changed a lot because of it and it has impacted my life in a very weird way.

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Natasha Oslinger link
1/14/2014 06:42:21 am

Yo yo yo Scotty you forgot to do supposition, but, the connection you made between your life and someone in the novel is strong. I like the way you were able to sum up the paragraphs in just a few short senctences, condensed, but informative. Overall, good work.

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Tyler Gange
1/14/2014 08:48:28 am

Quote: Hildia has bee caught! She was grabbed by the police while trying to leave the convent. Everyone in Don Horacio's meeting group has beeenn told to destroy anything that would make them feel guilty.

Significance: This piece is signficant because it shows that Minerva is starting to see what Trujjio is doing to his people, and I feel like this opened her eyes to what he was doing. It was also sad that Patricia's baby died, that really suprised me. People should care about this book because stuff like this really happend, which makes everything more shocking.

Connection:I can connect Trujjio's rule to Al Asad's rule in Syria, with him refusing to step out from power. In a literary form, I can connect it to pesident Snow from The Hunger Games and how he rigged the elections and killed his apponets.

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Josh Chiero link
1/14/2014 01:28:44 pm

Hey Tyler,
I also chose the same quote and believe it is very strong and you represented it very well. You highlighted some of the major things that happened in those two chapters which was good. I also thought that your connection to Al Asad was cool because nobody else though of that and it was unique

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Sam Klein
1/15/2014 11:02:46 am

Hey Tyler,
I like they way you summed up theses chapters. I think you were able to focus on some major areas of the chapters and you covered them very well. I liked when you brought up the fact that stuff like this really happens. I thought your connection was cool and interesting because no one eles that I know of had it.

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Natalie Boyle link
1/14/2014 01:26:56 pm

Quote: "Minerva says a soul is like a deep longing in you that you can never fill up, but you try. That is why there are stirring poems and brave heroes who die for what is right."

Significance: Each chapter is from a different sister's perspective. The first one was told from Dede's perspective and the second one was Minerva's story. The third and fourth chapter introduced Maria Teresa and Patria. We read how Maria Teresa learned about Trujillo. We also gained a deep perspective from Patria and her miscarriage. Minerva is out spoken, Dede is thoughtful, and Patria is very introspective. Chapter four explained Patria's relationship with God and how she lost faith after her miscarriage. Now that we know more about all three sisters, we can understand their parents better and who they are. Children reflect their parents and each daughter is very unique and different.

Connection: I feel like an abundance of people can relate to the quote above. I definitely do. However, when I first read it in the text I immediately thought of Martin Luther King Jr. He was assassinated for doing and fighting for equality. MLK Jr. is a brave hero who I look up to. The first part of the quote also reminds me of Elie Wiesel, specifically in his Holocaust memoir Night. He often talks about a deep earning and want of freedom.

Supposition: Because Patria is loosing her faith in God, she is going to commit a bold act of complete rebellion and do something wild. Trujillo is growing stronger, so things are going to escalate with Trujillo's power and interactions with the sisters.

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Gabriela Schnepp link
1/15/2014 09:33:21 am

"I should have desisted, I should not have seen what I saw. My child, a bundle of swarming ants! My child, decomposing like any animal! I fell to my knees, overcome by the horrid stench."

SIGNIFICANCE:
In these two chapters, we learn more about the other sisters and their thoughts on the problems they face. I feel like they are important because it brings me closer to the characters and helps me understand the conflict.

CONNECTION:
I can connect the diary entries to other books that I've read, including Anne Frank's diary. They both give us insight into the life of a young girl. Also, these two chapters teach us more about conflicts and loss, which are subjects that we've studied and are still learning about.

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Zach Schroeder
1/15/2014 10:02:38 am

"I pictured myself on a hot day falling, slowly and deeply, into those cold layers of water. I held on tight to my sister's hands, no longer afraid of anything but that she might let go."

Signifacance.... After Minerva tells Maria about the secret meetings she has been going to at Dons house, they have this experience together. By lying for her sister about their sick friend Tio, she showed her loyalty, but now she understands what she was lying about, and she is demonstrating her allegiance.

Connections... I feel like it is a lot of teen girls theses days. They get so caught up with hormones and think there in love and there all in the moment but its just there body growing. I feel like she is saying all this stuff in the moment.

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John Contreras
1/16/2014 08:13:39 am

“That’s when I started looking in the mirror. I was astonished to find, not the child I had been, but a young lady with high firm breasts and a sweet oval face. She smiled, dimpling prettily, but the dark, humid eyes were full of yearning. I put my hands up against the glass to remind her that she too must reach up for the things she didn’t understand.”(pg 45)

Significance- The character, Patria, is fourteen. She is growing up. She is yearning so she is sad and desiring. She expected to see herself as a child because she felt like one. She probably yearns for childish things because she still feels like one.

Connection- This is probably like a bar mitzva but for her culture. A bar mitzva shows that a Jewish person is growing up. In the American culture even when you are fourteen you barely get any power. In America when we are around eighteen we get more power. There are things that Partia probably doesn’t understand. This shows how some people are confused by something and they reach far for it to try to understand. People who are self aware are confused by others around them. Many people get confused growing up because as you grow up you ask yourself certain questions like where do you want your life to go or if you like your life.

Supposition- Next in story, I am guessing, Patria will try to figure out how is she growing up. She might think things through like choices whether to get married or move out.

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Brandon Cruz
1/21/2014 07:25:27 am

“And my room (I share with Minerva) with the windows you throw open on the garden with its bougainvillea arch like the entrance to a magic kingdom in a storybook.And to be called Mate. (We’re not allowed nicknames here. Even Dedé was called Belgica, which no one has ever called her.)”

Significance- Maria shares a room with Minerva. Maria is writing a diary. Maria is the youngest sister from four sisters. In gardens there are usually fruits, vegetables and flowers. Dominicans like flowers and usually want their house to look perfect. Maria can walk through the garden. Any time she walks through it she probably feels like she is in a book. She feels like she is in an imaginary world. Someone is calling Dede by the nickname Belgica. That person is disobeying the rule.
Connection- Some people in my life disobey rules. There is a sign that says no skateboarding and some people still skate. Skaters will break their necks. The people who put up the signs will not be responsible. People can get mad at skater and call the cops. The cops could arrest the skaters. I feel like they should follow the rules and skate somewhere else. The punishment skaters should get should be arrested and they should get a fine and their parents will have to pay for it. If I was a parent I would want to call my child whatever I want and I would be angry if people told me what to do.
Supposition- I suppose that more people are going to disobey and even more are going to disobey it and it is going to lead to problems. When there are rules, a lot of people are going to break them. There should not be that many rules. Nicknames don’t really matter. Parents should call their kids whatever they want. Parents might stand up to the law. The law would probably hate the parents. Hate leads to violence and death.

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Faris Livingstone link
1/26/2014 10:12:55 am

Quote: “I should have desisted, I should not have seen what I saw. My child, a bundle of swarming ants!”

Significance: Chapter 3 is an action-packed chapter told in Maria Teresa’s diary that Minerva had gifted her. From the diary we learn that Minerva has been skipping school to visit meetings about the revolution and that Maria Teresa is forced to give up her diary because it contains information about one of Minerva’s revolutionary friends, Hilda, who has been captured by guards. Another sad and shocking event in this chapter is that Patria miscarried a baby and this changed the connection she had with God and also her emotions. Chapter 4 takes place through Patria’s eyes. In this chapter we learn more about Patria and her connections to God breaking, growing, breaking and growing again.

Connection: A connection that can be made is that back in the day, all over the world, women usually married at a very young age. Marrying at a young age caused many people to have problems in their life, mentally, emotionally and physically. An example of someone who got married at a reasonably young age is my grandmother.

Supposition: I feel that Minerva and Maria Teresa will be caught and trapped because they know Hilda. They will go on the bad side of Trujillo and risk the rest of their family’s life.

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Sam Klein
1/27/2014 05:07:30 am

"Here ends my Little Book. Goodbye for now, not forever ( I hope )"
Significance - In these chapters we learn a lot about Maria and how she has this book that she is able write what ever she wants to in. This quote kinda shows how much she likes it because in the end she kinda whispers (i hope) to show that she still wants to write in it.
Connection - I would connect this to my own life because I think multiple people have gotten things taken away that you really enjoy and wish to get it back someday. I know I have and it was when I was younger my mom would take away my toys if I would misbehave and I would want them back so I would wait and wait with some sort of hope to receive them soon.

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Miguel Mendoza
2/10/2014 01:56:41 pm

Quote: "Minerva says keeping a diary is a way to reflect and reflection deepens ones soul. It sounds so serious. I suppose now that I have one I am responsible for, I can expect some changes"

Significance: I really thought that this quote was significant because it is the beginning of little Maria Teresa's adventure while introducing herself into the novel. This quote seems timeless as well, because of the fact that not many people get to reflect on their day to day actions.

Connections: This beginning entry was really positive and innocent, which reminded me of Ann Frank's diary during the museum of tolerance. She seemed to stay positive during difficult times and Maria Teresa relatively shows that as well.

Supposition: I have a great feeling that Maria Teresa's diary entries will help greatly in unfolding the story of the Mirabal sisters.

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Macy
6/12/2014 03:12:47 am

QUOTE: "I think it’s because I have three older sisters, and so I’ve grown up quick. I knew how to read before I even started school! In fact, Sor Asunción put me in fourth, though really, I should have been in third with the other tens."

SIGNIFICANCE: I think this quote is important to the story because it shows not only how close all the sisters are, but how mature the younger one has become through her sister and her family.

CONNECTIONS: This reminds me a lot of my little sister, Jolie because she has two older sisters and I think we have helped her learn how to do things and she acts so much older than she actually is.

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Macy Dillenbeck
6/12/2014 03:14:34 am

Supposition: What if this was written in newspapers instead of diary entries?

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