For my project I created a collage to demonstrate the story "Daughter of Invention", by Julia Alvarez. I showed the setting, themes, and details described in the story in my collage. For the setting, I put pictures of the United States and the Dominican Republic. The family lived in the Dominican Republic for a while but they then moved to America. They moved to New York to be exact.
Some themes I put on my collage to represent the story were responsibility, guilt, change, freedom, adaptation, family, and love. I used responsibility because Cukita was responsible for writing a speech that was due for the nuns at her school. She knew she had no choice other than write it. This theme leads to guilt. Cukita felt guilty of her speech since her father ripped it up; he said it was disrespectful to her teachers. Another theme was change since her father kept thinking he still lived under dictatorship. He didn't quite understand that he was free now and didn't have someone ruling him. He had to learn how to change. Like I said, they were free now. That is also another theme I picked. After living under dictatorship, they moved to America to have freedom and not have such a harsh life. Adaptation is also a theme I used to represent the story. Cukita, her sisters, and parents all had to adapt to the life they were living. Their parents had to adapt to the language as well as the girls. The girls also had to adapt to how school was. They would get bullied but they managed to adapt to it. Family and love both tie up. The family stayed strong under dictatorship and moving to America, together. Even after Cukita's father got mad and ripped up her speech, he still loved her no matter what. They were a loving family.
I used details from the story as well in my collage. For example, I put multiple things involving writing. I put several notebooks with pencils because Cukita began to write poetry after she moved. She would write poems in a little journal she kept. I put a typewriter because she always wanted one and at the end of the story she finally got it. I put a picture of a speech to represent the speech she wrote for her school. Along with that, I put a picture of a ripped up paper to represent the speech her father ripped up. Since the family lived under dictatorship, I put Rafael Trujillo since he was the dictator of the Dominican Republic at the time. I picked a picture of The New York Times because Cukita's mother was always reading it to see what was going on in the news. Lastly, I put sticks and stones because that's what the mother said to her girls. The girls told their mom they would get stones thrown at them, and she responded "Sticks and stones won't break your bones". I just found it an interesting quote. Overall, this is how I created my collage to represent the story "Daughter of Invention”.