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Oscar Mancini
Carla is Anita’s favorite cousin. Though Anita doesn’t offer much information about Carla’s personality, Carla has a nervous habit of tucking her hair behind her ears and, like her three sisters, she has a temper. Carla and her family leave the Dominican Republic in early November, after their father—unbeknownst to his daughters—was involved in a plot to overthrow the government. Anita and Carla write to each other as much as they can in the year that follows. Once Anita joins the rest of her family in New York, she finds Carla changed. Carla’s mother, Tía Laura, is concerned that all her daughters are losing their grasp of Spanish after speaking so much English at school. Carla is also fixated on a boy who lives in her neighborhood.
Carla Quotes in Before We Were Free
The Before We Were Free quotes below are all either spoken by Carla or refer to Carla. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter Three
Quotes
Not that I think of Sam as a boyfriend, which I’m not allowed to have anyway. Mami doesn’t approve of my being around any boys who aren’t related to me. But since my cousins moved away, the rules have both tightened and loosened in odd ways. I can’t talk about the SIM’s visit or my cousins’ leaving for New York City, but I can have Sam for a best friend even if he is a boy.
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Chapter Ten
Quotes
Then one of them shook our hands and said, “Welcome to the United States of America,” and pointed us out of Immigration. And there was my answer to how I would survive in this strange, new world: my family was waiting for us—Mundín and Lucia, my grandparents, Carla, her sisters, and Tía Laura and Tío Carlos and Tía Mimí—all of them calling out, “Anita! Carmen!”
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Carla Quotes in Before We Were Free
The Before We Were Free quotes below are all either spoken by Carla or refer to Carla. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter Three
Quotes
Not that I think of Sam as a boyfriend, which I’m not allowed to have anyway. Mami doesn’t approve of my being around any boys who aren’t related to me. But since my cousins moved away, the rules have both tightened and loosened in odd ways. I can’t talk about the SIM’s visit or my cousins’ leaving for New York City, but I can have Sam for a best friend even if he is a boy.
Related Characters:
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Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter Ten
Quotes
Then one of them shook our hands and said, “Welcome to the United States of America,” and pointed us out of Immigration. And there was my answer to how I would survive in this strange, new world: my family was waiting for us—Mundín and Lucia, my grandparents, Carla, her sisters, and Tía Laura and Tío Carlos and Tía Mimí—all of them calling out, “Anita! Carmen!”
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Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
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