The day the Garcias were one American year old, they had celebration at dinner. Mami had baked a nice flan and stuck a candle in the center. "Guess what day it is today?" She looked around the table at her daughters' baffled faces. "One year ago today," Papi began orating, "we came to the shores of this great country." When he was done misquoting the poem on Statue of Liberty, the youngest, Fifi, asked if she could blow out the candle, and Mami said only after everyone had made a wish.
What do you wish for on the first celebration of the day you lost everything? Carla wondered. Everyon else arounf the table had their eyes closed as if they had no trouble deciding. Carla closed her eyes too. She should make an effort and not wish for what she always wished for in her homesickness. But just this last time, she would let herself. "Dear God," she began. She could not get used to this American wish-making without bringing God into it. "Ket us please go back home, please," she half prayed and half wished. It seemed a less and less likely prospect. In fact, her parents were sinking roots here. Only a month ago, they had moved out of the city to a neighborhood on Long Island so that the girls could have a yard to play in, so mami said. The little green squares around each look-alike house seemed more like carpeting that had to be kept clean than yards to play in. The trees were no taller than little Fifi. Carla thought yearningly of the lush grasses and thick-limbed, vine-ladened trees around the compound back home. (pg. 150)
In this passage, the girls are celebrating one year since they have been in America. However, in Carla's perspective, she doesn't want to stay in America and that she is a bit homesick. This made me think about all the immigrants to come to America. After a year, are they happy here? Why don't they like it?
What do you guys think? Why does Carla want to go home? Can you relate to this?
-Michelle Xia!
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I think I would feel the same way as Carla. If I was in a foreign country, I would be quite homesick as well. I think that the immigrants are indeed, happy because they come to America to start a better life, but feel homesick at times because they left everything and picked up and went to America.
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I would feel the same way as Carla also. When I went to my cousins house in Pennsylvania alone, I felt homesick and I wanted to go back home immediatley. This happened when I was 6 years old so it doesn't happen now (: Immigrants feel homesick sometimes because even though they left their home country to live in America, they still miss their life back home and their family & friends back home.
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