Which excerpt from Cristina Garcia’s Dreaming in Cuban best exemplifies magic realism?
Read the excerpt from Cristina Garcia’s Dreaming in Cuban . I was only two years old when I left Cuba but I remember everything that’s happened to me since I was a baby, even word-for-word conversations. I was sitting in my grandmother’s lap, playing with her drop pearl earrings, when my mother told her we were leaving the country. Abuela Celia called her a traitor to the revolution. Mom tried to pull me away but I clung to the Abuela and screamed at the top of my lungs. My grandfather came running and said, “Celia, let the girl go. She belongs with Lourdes.” This was the last time I saw her. How does the structure of the excerpt add meaning to the passage?
Read the excerpt from Cristina Garcia’s Dreaming in Cuban . If it were up to me, I’d record other things. Like the time there was a freak hailstorm in the Congo and the women took it as a sign that they should rule . . . Why don’t I know anything about them? Who chooses what we should know or what’s important? I know I have to decide these things for myself. Most of what I’ve learned that’s important I’ve learned on my own, or from my grandmother. What does the excerpt reveal about Cristina Garcia?
Read the excerpt from "Mother Tongue." Just last week, I was walking down the street with my mother, and I again found myself conscious of the English I was using, the English I do use with her. We were talking about the price of new and used furniture and I heard myself saying this: “Not waste money that way.” My husband was with us as well, and he didn’t notice any switch in my English. And then I realized why. It’s because over the twenty years we’ve been together I’ve often used that same kind of English with him, and sometimes he even uses it with me. It has become our language of intimacy, a different sort of English that relates to family talk, the language I grew up with. Which best summarizes the central idea of the excerpt?
Read the excerpt from "Mother Tongue." Lately, I’ve been giving more thought to the kind of English my mother speaks. Like others, I have described it to people as “broken” or “fractured” English. But I wince when I say that. It has always bothered me that I can think of no other way to describe it other than “broken,” as if it were damaged and needed to be fixed, as if it lacked a certain wholeness and soundness. What best supports the inference that Tan believes nonstandard English is no less valid than standard English?
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