Why was Secret Santa Cancelled Before We Were Free?

Chapter 3 "Secret Santa"

Chapter 3- Vocabulary

apprehensive: (adj.) anxious or fearful that something bad or unpleasant will happen.
embargo: (n.) an official ban on trade or other activity with a particular country
canasta: (n.) a card game
censors: (n.) a person who is authorized to decide if something that others will see or read should be considered unacceptable
mercado: (n.) a marketplace

Chapter 3- Summary

Now that the Washburns have moved in and the SIM have gone away, it is safe for Anita to go back to school. Mami tells Anita not to tell anyone about how the SIM came to their house. When Anita goes back to school, her teacher introduces a secret Santa game, where everyone leaves secret notes to a person in their class at Christmas time. Anita is hoping she gets Sammy. Anita really likes Sammy, and he has become very popular at school. Mrs. Brown then gives the class bad news. They are canceling the Secret Santa game because some of the parents don’t like the idea.

The reason that some parents don’t like the Secret Santa game is because they feel there is enough tension and pressure in the country right now with the way El Jefe is treating people, and leaving secret messages could be taken the wrong way. Mrs. Brown explains to the class that the United States is taking part in an embargo. An embargo, she explains, is when a country doesn’t agree with something another country is doing, and they refuse to trade or do business with that country until things get better. In this case, the United States does not agree with how El Jefe is being a cruel dictator in the Dominican Republic, and they refuse to work with the Dominican Republic until things change.

Anita has her 12th birthday and a big Christmas celebration with her family. She gets to talk to her grandparents and cousins in New York and this makes her very happy. She is trying to sleep on Christmas Eve and she notices that someone is inside Tio Toni’s little house again. Something is going on in that house. 

Chapter 3- Reading Questions

1. What is Anita's internal conflict?
2. What does "No flies fly into a closed mouth" mean?
3. How does an embargo work?  How might an embargo impact the political situation in the Dominican Republic?
4. How do Anita and her family feel toward the United States and Americans in general?  Find evidence
5. Describe El Jefe's dictatorship. How might living under his regime affect you?

Today is a difficult one: 2021 will be the last year of Reddit Gifts. We will continue to run exchanges through the end of the year -- including the last ever Arbitrary Day (signups are now open) -- and will end with Secret Santa 2021.

We didn’t make this decision lightly.

We made the difficult decision to shut down Reddit Gifts and put more focus on enhancing the user experience on Reddit - this includes investing in the foundation of our platform and moderator tools, making it more accessible for people around the world and evolving how people engage with one another.

The power of Reddit Gifts was never in the software, and has always belonged to the r/secretsanta community of gifters around the world, which has connected people and been an extension of our mission to bring community and belonging to everyone in the world. We’re hopeful that spirit will continue in the future.

What this means for future exchanges in 2021

In preparation for retiring Reddit Gifts after the final exchange at the end of 2021, we will be taking the following actions:

• In order to limit incomplete exchanges, we have disabled the creation of any new Reddit Gifts accounts. If you have an existing Reddit Gifts account, we would love it if you would participate with us in these final exchanges.

• Any incomplete exchanges will result in a ban from the remaining Reddit Gifts exchanges.

• This morning, we turned off the ability to buy Elves. If you purchased an Elves membership and have remaining months after the 2021 Secret Santa Exchange, we will email you about your refund options then. If you have specific concerns about your Elves membership, please reach out to Reddit Gifts support.

These changes have been put in place to ensure that these last exchanges are enjoyable for the legacy Reddit Gifts users. We want to celebrate the end of Reddit Gifts with the community that we’ve built so far.

Countless acts of love, heroism, compassion, support, growth and hilarity happened through Reddit Gifts, and those memories will live on in the hearts of our community. We’re working on ways to capture these moments and look forward to seeing how the spirit and connection of exchanging gifts with strangers will live on. I’m sure you will all have a ton of questions, and we will be here to answer them.

What Was Chapter 3 about in before We Were Free?

What is anitas internal conflict?

What is Chapter 8 about in Before We Were Free?

How old is Anita in Before We Were Free?