Connections in Family Stories

Some of the stories my classmates wrote were about tragedies. In fact, mine was about a tragedy,  but sometimes the events and tragedies that happen can change people's lives. In my story, my grandfather was mistreated during the Honduras-El Salvador war in 1969. He was mistreated for being from El Salvador and living in Honduras. The soldiers from Honduras came to his house and took him to prison, where they tortured him and treated him bad. When he was let free, his life changed and he was not the same person. He became a sad person and his personality changed a lot.
I found other stories written by my classmates that were similar, or that had the same ideas that mine had.. I think that the stories that involve tragedies are the ones that connect to mine.

This is from Carly's story:

His leg had been cut off of circulation for too long, it was already dead. On that day, the doctors amputated my Uncle’s left leg at the age of twenty.
The loosing of his leg depressed and hurt my Uncle so deeply; he tried to commit suicide multiple times.

In Carly's story,  she talks about the story of her uncle who was traveling to "the city" in a train. Something happened to the train that caused it to go out of control so the people in the train thought that the best way to survive before the train crashed was to jump off from it. Well, Carly's uncle (which is actually her great-uncle) decided that he, with the other passengers would jump off the train, but it was too late. By the time he jumped off the train, the train had already crashed into a house of boulders. His left leg was jammed by the boulders. He survived, thankfully, but his left leg had to be amputated when he was only 20 years old.

After the accident he became really depressed and always thought about suicide. This incident changed his life for ever. Eventually he changed though; he did not think about suicide anymore and looked more happy. This was because all the support his family gave him. The strength that his family gave him helped him feel better about his life. This is the kind of tragedy that can put someone down, make them feel like giving  up, like Carly's uncle.

In Rahni's story, she says:

So they left the baby and came to California. They got settled in and were doing their thing, when my great grandmother got word that her baby Charles and her mother died in a burning house. they said the KKK was responsible for it but they did not know, so she had to go back and confirm it to make sure.

 In this story, her great grandparents get married but struggled so they move around a lot. They have a kid and they leave it with her mother, and then move again, but one day the baby and her mother(great grandma's mother) are killed in a fire. This was a tragedy that changed the lives of that family. Rahni's grandparents were hurt a lot because their kid was killed probably by the KKK, and her mother was killed as well. That caused suffering to the family.

Tragedies change people's lives and make them suffer. Sometimes the effects are permanent but sometimes people learn to let go and continue their lives normally, not forgetting about the past but putting it aside. I have actually done this in my life.

These three stories have tragedies that caused struggles. I guess that's all what tragedies do...

The cycle of daughters and mothers

Mothers influence their daughters to become like them when their daughters grow up, but they don't always do it directly. Sometimes they kind of force their daughters to do whatever they think their daughters should do, in other words, they make the decisions for their daughters so that when they are older, they are shaped similar to them.

In the short stories from The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, The mothers in most of the stories treat their daughters in a very similar way. They make their daughters do things that they want them to do and not actually what the daughters want to do.

I think that this is a big part of the Chinese culture, and i also think that it could be part of other cultures around the world but the Chinese are the ones that show it the most.

In the story Rules of The Game, Waverly Jong is the daughter of a mother who tells her what to do, what is according to her what will make Waverly a successful person. Waverly learns by herself that she is good at something; playing chess. She slowly starts to show the people around her the big talent she has. Once her mother sees that her daughter is doing something with her life by herself, she interferes and starts pressuring her daughter to work harder on her chess skills, which just makes it hard for Waverly to be able to do good.

 As her men drew closer to my edge, i felt myself growing light. I rose up into the air and flew out the window. Higher and higher, above the alley, over the tops of tiled roofs, where i was gathered up by the wind and pushed up toward the night sky until everything below me disappeared and i was alone. (pg. 101)

Eventually, her mother caused Waverly to quit chess. Her mother was just trying to help her with her pushing, but Waverly could not take it. This mother was trying to make her daughter be what she wanted her to be and did not let her deal with her dream independently causing her to quit what she was so good at.

One of the main characters, Suyuan Woo who died from a brain aneurysm years after she moved from China and lived in the US. She created the Joy Luck Club, and she got a group of women to join her (They were Chinese too). After her death, the other women that formed part of the Joy Luck Club saw Jing-Mei Woo as the next leader of the group. They kind of expected her to continue what her mother had started.

'You are responsible', said my mother. (pg. 28)

This doesn't show how the women from the club wanted her to replace her m,other, but that does show how the mother, Suyuan, talked to Jing-Mei, telling her that she is responsible. This kind of shows that her mom considers her or could consider her responsible for whatever she leaves behind when she dies, in this case the club.

Mothers influence their daughters in life, they want them to turn out a certain way, but they pick the way they'll turn out and the daughters are dependent on doing things from their mothers.

My story: Once upon a time during The Football War

I remember my aunt told me this story years ago, when I was a little kid. I think I was seven when she told me. So to refresh my mind, I had to call my other aunt in Honduras to tell me more about the story, so she explained it to me and she told me some things  I do not remember my other aunt telling me, but that is probably because I was a kid. But anyways, this is the story:

Years ago, in 1969, Honduras and El Salvador had a war. It was called “The Football War”. The war started because El Salvadorian people were migrating north to Honduras illegally. The population in Honduras was growing and there were way too many people. Those were political conflicts between the two nations. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Salvadorans had begun migrating to Honduras in large numbers. By 1969, more than 300,000 Salvadorans were living in Honduras. These Salvadorans made up twenty percent of the peasant population of Honduras. Many illegal Salvadorians were taking the jobs of Honduran citizens and the government of Honduras did not like that. It is called The Football War because soccer was one of the things that contributed to it. Even though "Football War" implies that the conflict was due to a soccer game, the causes of the war go deeper.

The World Cup was going to happen the following year in Mexico, in 1970. Honduras and El Salvador met in the second North American qualifying round for the 1970 FIFA World Cup. There were three games for the qualification of the 1970 FIFA World Cup played between Honduras and El Salvador in 1969. One game was played in the capital city of Honduras, in Tegucigalpa and Honduras won that game. That game was controversial because after the game, an eight-year old Salvadorian little girl killed herself by shooting herself in the heart. The second game played in the capital city of El Salvador, San Salvador, was won by El Salvador and that created a lot of violence on both sides.  The last and most important game, which was played in Mexico, was also won by El Salvador by one goal with extra time. On the same day, 26 June 1969, El Salvador dissolved all ties with Honduras, stating that "the government of Honduras has not taken any effective measures to punish these crimes which constitute genocide, nor has it given assurances of indemnification or reparations for the damages caused to Salvadorans". This led to border clashes between the two nations.

More issues were territorial issues. El Salvador debated that part of what Hondurans said was their territory was actually Salvadorian territory, which was not true.

In the afternoon of July 14^th, 1969, military action began. El Salvador’s Air Force attacked targets inside Honduras, killing civilians. War was never declared, and El Salvador surprise attacked Honduras. Salvadorian troops entered Honduras, destroying towns and killing civilians. To defend itself, Honduras sent troops to face the Salvadorians and the Honduran Air Force to stop the Salvadorian Air Force.

My grandfather was from El Salvador. He was born there and lived there until he was five years old. At the age of five, he moved to Honduras, to a small town close to the border with El Salvador. I am not sure if my grandfather or “abuelito”, as I called him came to Honduras legally. Well, He lived most of his life in Honduras and I think that the only time he was in El Salvador was when he was a baby and maybe he visited once or twice as an adult but he was technically Honduran. I know that he was a citizen of Honduras because my aunt told me, but I am still not sure about him going legally to Honduras.

In 1969, when the war began, the Honduran government ordered the people of El Salvador to leave Honduran land. If not they would be taken by the Honduran troops and taken to prison.  What my grandfather did was hide.

My aunt says (she was a little kid during the war) that they could not sleep during the war because in the town they lived was really close to El Salvador. Every hour, they would hear planes flying over, dropping bombs close by. The Salvadorians were bombing every town they could. My grandmother, grandfather and my uncles and aunts would hide under their beds, afraid of the bombs, even though that was not the best place for protection, but that was the only thing they could do because they could not escape because there were Salvadorian soldiers everywhere.

A few days after the war began, Honduran troops pushed back the Salvadorian taking control over their towns and most of their territory again. Salvadorians still bombed the towns but not as before. Once the Soldiers from El Salvador were kicked out of the town where my grandfather lived, the Honduran soldiers went around the towns looking for Salvadorian people. My grandpa was in danger. The government had already told the Salvadorians to get out of Honduras.

The Honduran soldiers captured my grandfather, and put him in prison where they tortured him and many other Salvadorians found. They were hung on trees but not killed. They were not given food, and they were constantly hit by soldiers. We do not really know what my grandfather’s experience in prison was because he kept quiet when he came back. He did not say much about his experience. But I am sure it was not a good experience.

After the war ended, he was still in prison for two more months. He was freed after the two months and he was allowed to stay in Honduras since he was a citizen. In Honduras, things changed after the war. Salvadorian people were mistreated. My grandfather was mistreated by other men. He was insulted for being Salvadorian. Years after the war, Hondurans and El Salvador signed a peace treaty and after that, things started to get better for Salvadorians in Honduras.  

I learned that there were conflicts within my roots. This connects to me because when I was younger, I grew up with this mentality of having negative thoughts against Salvadorian people, but when I grew older, I started to understand that we are a family. I did not see that when I was little. I did not even know my grandfather was from El Salvador, and I found out years after of his death. I never got to spend much time with him. I have only one memory of him with me. I was too young to remember more about him. He died when I was three years old.  

I think that this story has survived in my family because that had never happened to anyone in my family before and has not happened to anyone since. My grandfather was also someone really important in my family, he was a role model.  It has been passed from generation to generations because we, in our family need to know what our struggles have been and to remember what happened. What makes this significant is that my grandfather survived, if he hadn’t been lucky, he would have been killed like many other Salvadorians did. And yeah, that is my story.

The Fianl Chapter

 NOTE: Clover is confused about her gender.

Napoleon went to back to the farm with the rest of the pigs, or the ones that were pigs at some point in their lives after the card game. Napoleon was still furious because Mr. Pilkington had cheated according to him. All the animals that were watching the game ran to back to the farm before Napoleon or one of the pigs came out of there and saw them. Clover could not keep it quiet though; he ran into a fence, broke it and made a lot of noise.

Clover was lying on the ground when Napoleon came out. He did not have any time to get up and run in the farm, but he also thought it would have not been right just to run away and leave the fence broken without taking responsibility for breaking it. Clover had never seen Napoleon looking so angry before. Napoleon screamed, “Clover! Why were you outside?”

“I was watching the game…” said Clover scared.

The rest of the animals made it to the farm without getting caught. They were looking at Clover and Napoleon talking through the holes in the wooden walls of the barn. They thought Napoleon was going to send Clover away from the farm and never come back.

“Well, go back inside and tomorrow you will fix this fence and you will not get any food and water for breaking it!” were Napoleon’s last words that day. He walked around the farm and then into the house. The pigs followed him in and closed the door.

The next morning the pigs came out of the house, except for Napoleon. They called all the animals of the farm and told them they needed to tell them something important. Once all the animals were gathered together in the barn, the pigs asked them to be quiet. Squealer started talking and said, “We have something important to tell you. Napoleon has decided that we will not continue having human connections. He recently had problems with them and he thinks we should just keep our distance and the farm away from them. They are as you all know dangerous.”

The news was such a surprise to all the animals that they were happy.

“Since Napoleon made that decision, he now has full power over what goes on here. The humans were a great advantage to us, and now that they will be gone, Napoleon wants you working much harder than you usually do. You will be assigned more jobs to do and if you refuse to do something, you will be punished. Napoleon will keep giving all of you orders, and we will keep supervising your work. If you do something wrong, there will be big consequences. You are not allowed to go out of the farm and you cannot talk to any other animal out of this farm. Oh! And Napoleon is sick. He said he does not feel good and he will probably stay in the house for a few more days resting “ said Squealer.

After Squealer said that, all the animals looked angry. They knew it was better not to argue so they did what they were told and when they were released, they went straight to do their jobs. Clover obeyed and fixed the fence as Napoleon ordered him.

That night, Clover and Benjamin started talking about what they should do while everyone else was asleep. They both agreed that a rebellion against Napoleon and the pigs was much easier than before since they didn’t have human help anymore. They talked all night about what they’d do and came up with a plan. The next morning they spread the news about the plan and by the evening all the animals knew that there was a plan and that they all had to be up at midnight to hear Clover and Benjamin tell them the plan.

They all waited until the lights of the house were off to be sure that the Pigs and Napoleon were sleeping. Clover began, “Thank you for being here tonight, my comrades. As we all know, Napoleon is taking advantage of his power and taking advantage of us as well. We have to stand up to him and the pigs, just like most of our ancestors rose to overthrow the humans of the farm. We are all brave and strong, and we cannot let this keep happening. We are all animals, therefore we are all equal. Napoleon does not have the right to think he is better than any of us. My plan, my comrades is to get rid of Napoleon and the pigs and to establish justice and equality. We cannot change the pigs; they are always going to be the way they are. What I suggest is for us to burn the house tomorrow night with Napoleon and the pigs in it. That is the only solution we have.”

“I agree with Clover and I think we need to do this before things get out of control.” Said Benjamin.

There was a moment of silence, until Benjamin asked, “so who is with us?”

Moses was the first to answer, “I am”.

Then one after another started answering, “me too”, “I am”, “I am”, “I am too” until everyone said yes.

“Alright comrades, tomorrow we will prepare everything for our plan. We will work as we normally do, but we will be taking dried grass and leafs and we will secretly put them around the house without making it obvious. We will need you, Moses to fly in the house through the chimney and get the matches. Maybe you or someone else can light them. Clover, I will need you to make sure the doors cannot be opened, you are strong, so you and with the help of other can move bales of hay to the possible exists. Is everyone understood?” said Benjamin. They all nodded.

“Thank you for your time comrades, this is and will be for our own good.” Then they all went to sleep.

The following morning, they all started working as usual and putting the dried grass around the house. Neither the pigs nor Napoleon noticed as the animals placed grass around the house. It was finally time to go to sleep and they patiently waited for the lights of the house to be off. They waited about an hour after the lights went off to make sure they were asleep. Then all the animals quietly got out of the barn and starting helping move bales of hay and setting them in front of doors, and any kind of exit. The house was surrounded by grass and dried leafs. Moses, with its beak held a math and lighted it and dropped it on the grass. Fire started. Moses did the same thing all around the house. The fire started getting big. The house was burning and the sky looked black from all the fire smoke. The animals moved away from the fire but still in the farm watching as the house was burned down and everything inside it being destroyed.

The fire continued until the morning, and luckily it did not move from the house to the farm. About an hour after the sun came out, the farmers from other farms close by started coming and trying to stop the fire with buckets of water and hoses. They managed to stop it before it got dark. It didn’t seem like they found anything in the house. That afternoon, the farmers moved the animals to their own farms. Animal farm was completely empty and no one controlled it anymore. The house was totally destroyed, and that gave the farm a feeling of peace, which was of course because there was no one there.

At the end, it was like nothing happened because the humans took the animals over again. Animals then realized that they could never be free. Another attempt on rebelling would be in vein. Clover knew that he could not do anything else to try to be free, so all he and the other animals did was work and do as the humans said for the rest of their lives.