In Julia Alvarez's short story, "Snow," an immigrant student, named Yolanda, is learning the American way of doing things. She learns that there is an ugly and hateful war going on in the world around her. Sister Zoe, Yolanda's Catholic school teacher, explains to her and her classmates what a bomb is; a mushroom-shaped explosion with white specks of dust filling the air. However, when Yolanda sees real winter snow for the first time, she mistakes it for dust from a bomb. After Sister Zoe explains that what Yolanda is seeing is snow, and not a bomb, Yolanda realizes that snow, unlike a bomb, can be a beautiful thing to witness. The last sentence of her short story by Julia Alvarez embodies the true meaning of snow and how it can represent human beings. Julia Alvarez writes: "Each bow was different, Sister Zoe had said, like a person, irreplaceable and beautiful." The key words in this sentence are "flake", "different", "person", "irreplaceable" and "beautiful". Sometimes, a "flake" can be misinterpreted. A flake can be someone who never keeps their word, someone who says they will do something and doesn't. However, in this context, the “flake” that Sister Zoe talks about is a snowflake. A snowflake is defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as "a flake or crystal of snow." Expanding on this, the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a flake as “a small loose mass or piece” and a crystal as “quartz that is transparent or nearly so and that is colorless or only slightly shaded.” In my opinion, Sister Zoe compares Yolanda to snowflakes. At the beginning of the story, Sister Zoe isolates Yolanda from the rest of the class and assigns her a special seat at the front of the room. Yolanda is a snowflake, metaphorical......center of the card......erent, but stands out because she is different. I define the word "beautiful" as something that catches your attention and attracts you. Again, Yolanda is different, which makes her beautiful, because she captures people's attention. I think Julia Alvarez is trying to tell the people reading this story that they are beautiful and irreplaceable, like a snowflake. It's trying to let people know that it's okay if you have dark skin, or you have thick hair, or you have blue eyes, or even if you're green with blue hair. Each of us has something in us, a special quality that no one else has, that makes us all irreplaceable and beautiful, just like a snowflake. Works Cited Alvarez, Julia. "Snow." Portable literature: read, react, write. By Laurie G. Kirszner and Stephen R. Mandell. 8th ed. Boston, MA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2011. 75-76. Press.