Something to Declare (Pgs 1-60)

Summary:

In the first part of Something to Declare, we can see what caused the protagonist and her family move to America. This was because during her childhood, in the Dominican Republic was a dictatorship led by Rafael Trujillo. In order to survive during this time period you had to get out of the country or live hidden in your house without making any bad comments about the dictator because it might cause your death. In the first chapter, we can see how Julia was indecisive on what she wanted to be when she grew up. She went from bullfighter, to a cowboy, to an actress but there was always some sort of impediment or characteristic that she did not have in order to be any of these. Until the end when she decided she would be a poet and everyone agreed with her. Julia has a very close connection with her parents since she calls them "Mami" and "Papi" which has a very strong connotation to describe their relationship. When it was the time to move to the United States, Julia and her sisters were really sad because they did not want to leave their culture and their country to get used to a new one. When her family was in New York, she saw that everything in this country was different from her natal one, and this made her think if the papers made her free of everything she loved back home. At first it was really hard for her in school since English was not her native language. Also because they were used to speak Spanglish which was not the same language spoken in school. As young teenagers in a new country Julia and her sisters started to think that they should change their look in order to fit in. So they started to watch the Miss America contest, after watching the contest they decided that they needed to change their look in order to look more American. Even thought they wanted to look like that, they did not fit in because of their skin color, their height and even their hair. But after that they realized that the late sixties were coming, and ethnic look, would be in. their classmates wanted to look exotic; they wanted to look like Julia and her sisters because of their culture.

Quote:

"It took some time before I understood that Americans were not necessarily a smarter, superior race. It was a natural for them to learn their mother tongue as it was for a little Dominican baby to learn Spanish. It came with "mother's milk," my mother explained, and for a while I thought a mother tongue was a mother tongue because you got it from your mother's breast , along with proteins and vitamins" (Alvarez 27).

Reaction:

This story is told in first person. When I first read this quote, I find a connection with the narrator of the book since we both came to this country at a young age and we had to get used to a new culture, language and new type of people. It is hard to understand a different culture and more when you had a different idea about who they were until you see reality and understand they are the same as you. Another connection is that both of us had to get used to a different language in which you only know the basic words, but when you get to the country it seems like nothing. As I read this quote, I also see that the narrator is using dual narrative voice. This is seen when she says "for a while I thought a mother tongue was a mother tongue”, because you can see the innocence in which she sees this phrase and how she interprets it. In connection to the story as a whole, this quote is important because we can see how she is getting adapted to this new country bit by bit in which she is going to stay the rest of her life. This is because of the situation in her native country in which she won’t have the same opportunities she is having in this one.