#12 Bad Influence

The narrator, Rita, doesn’t want to go to her grandparents in Puerto Rica for three months but the other option (Catholic girl’s retreat) was even worse. For an almost fifteen years old girl from New Jersey this is of course the end of the world.

In the beginning Rita experiences some culture shock and gets overwhelmed by   her grandparent’s totally different lifestyle  and believes. The narrative gives the impression that she looks down on them and their way to handle things like diseases and personal problems. But, as a young teenager from a big city I can understand why. If any of my grandparents would still be alive today and they told me that a cup of tea would cure my “asthma” or that my soul is in pain and they can contact the guides who can tell him what need to be done, I probably would think they had lost their mind. 

In the beginning she tries to avoid them and think it’s unfair she can’t be with Johnny, “The worst part is that I didn’t deserve it. My mother interrogated me about what had happened between me and that boy, as she called him. Nothing. I admit that I was thinking about it.” (p. 72).  She is young and naïve and of course she can’t see how she already influenced by this boy. She thinks she’s a grown up and knows what she is doing despise what everyone else around her are saying.

Slowly Rita starts to take down her walls and open her mind for new and different things. She sees how beautiful the beach really is and how a rich woman hires her “silly” grandfather to solve her problems in home. And she gets a new friend, the rich lady’s daughter who talks English and are used to money and luxury. But even this girl believe it was Rita’s grandfathers abilities which helped her mother to kick out the bad influence; her boyfriend. And she shows a lot of respect for Rita’s grandparents and we can see it changes the narrator’s point of view too. When they throw Rita a big party for her birthday, she finally sees them at lovely, funny and respected people in the society (and not as just silly people).

Luckily, Rita got the bad influence away and got some new (good) influences instead. She changed in a positive way through those three months.