The story “Daughter of Invention,” is based on a family that migrated from the Dominican Republic to New York. They moved because the family’s father was almost caught on plans to overthrow the dictator. Since they moved the daughters had trouble “fitting in” with everyone at school. The narrator was excited one day home from school saying that she was chose to write a speech to the nuns at her school. When she finishes the speech she worked hours on with her mom, she decides to read it out loud to her dad he tears it up in her face.

The narrator’s father didn’t allow his daughter to present a speech she worked hours on with her mom, to her school. Her father said it was disrespectful to her teachers for saying such harmless little phrases like, “I celebrate myself” and “The best students learn to destroy the teacher.” Parents think most of the things we do are wrong and meaningless.

We don’t mean it as disrespect, we mean it as sarcasm or a figure of speech, because we truly don’t want to “destroy a teacher”, or “celebrate ourselves.” The narrator probably meant it as, “The best students learn to out fool the teacher.” Or “The best students learn the teacher’s ways or way of doing things.”  When she said “celebrate ourselves,” she probably meant that as feeling good about ourselves.

Parents don’t understand the purposes of why we do some things; they see them as disrespectful, like the narrator’s father in the story. As the narrator felt sad and confused at why her father didn’t like her speech, he made the hours she and her mom spent on the speech, meaningless.

The real question is, why do parents forbid us to do speak our mind and tell us to follow the rules, and we think, what if we’re fighting for something important? A reason why I think parents don’t let us speak our mind is because they don’t want us to get into trouble.

Our parents are most likely from a different generation where things were done way different than the way we do things. Although I ask myself, is being an over-protective parent a good thing? Don’t children or adolescents need to experience things, fall and get dirty to learn from their mistakes?

My opinion is that parents should let us speak our mind; because in order for me to do something right I either have to learn it right off the bat  or do it wrong a couple times and get it right.

Therefore, I believe that the father in “Daughter of Invention,” was wrong for not letting his daughter present her speech to the school. He should’ve let her present it so if she did wrong, she would have learned from her mistakes. Another reason why I think he was wrong was that he didn’t fully understand the true meaning of what she wrote. He heard the words but he didn’t understand the meaning. It was like using the phrase “it’s raining cats and dogs,” when you’re next to a foreign person, they knew what you said, but they didn’t understand the meaning. 

Although, I'm not saying that not letting your child do what they want t mean that you don't love them either. What I am saying is that they need a way to express their feelings,  in this case the narrator decided to express her feelings towards the school in a peaceful manor, in the form of  speech, which she was given the opportunity to write.  Sadly, she wasn’t able to present her original writing to her school. Then I ask myself, what would've happened if she presented her original speech to her school? Would they still have liked it? Honestly, she probably would've still gotten likes, maybe even more, because In her original piece not only did she write nicely, she also related to her peers. That's what I like in writings, when I hear or read that the author also relates to me, and that I relate to them, that we have things in common.

To conclude, my opinion is that I believe that the narrator's father in “Daughter of Invention” did wrong in not letting her present her speech. I think he was wrong in doing that because if she did wrong in what she wrote in her speech, she would've probably gotten in trouble, but she would have learned from that experience. Although, she did get a round of applause, I believe that they would’ve loved her original version even way more. I believe that parents should let their child experience a few things so that they can harden and not be surprised when they experience a similar situation.