Katie Manning English 101 Section 1980 10/16/08 Essay #1 original “Snow” by Julia Alvarez One of a Kind Once Yolanda improves on her English, she starts to understand about the holocaust and war possibilities that all the adults discuss. She hears of the holocaust that is happening in Cuba and of the Russian missiles that Russia has aimed specifically at New York. She also hears how President Kennedy is worried too, and how he explains a possible war against the Communists. When Yolanda is in school, it is all about the air-raid drills they learn in case of an actual emergency where they would have to take cover and pray for the best. While she is witnessing all of this violence and warfare, she can still return home to where, “_mama and my sisters and I said a rosary for world peace_” (pg.439, paragraph 2). At the age of nine, Yolanda starts to learn more and more about the world around her but is still too young to comprehend it all. While all of this is happening so fast, Sister Zoe tries her best to inform her fourth graders about what is going on around them. She starts to draw a picture “_of a mushroom on the blackboard and dotted a flurry of chalkmarks for the dusty fallout that would kill us all_” (pg.439, paragraph 2). As the months pass from November and into December, Yolanda holds on to the memory of the day Sister Zoe drew that picture on the chalkboard. All of a sudden, she notices little dots falling one by one and then slowly all at once. Yolanda becomes quite scared and screams aloud that there is a bomb. The girls in class start to cry, thinking they are about to die. Sister Zoe comes rushing to Yolanda’s side to see what is going on outside when she notices the snow. She calms everyone down and says, “_Why, Yolanda dear, that’s snow!_” (pg. 439, paragraph 4). Yolanda repeats the word as if it is new to her. She had always heard of the white flakes that fall out of the skies in America in the cold months, but had never experienced it...