Graciela Kaplan

A recently adopted 16-year-old Carribean girl.

Description

She is around 5'4", with long, sturdy limbs, and adolescent curves. A slender face, and big light brown eyes with a striking gaze. Her hair is thick, wiry, black, and impossible to run fingers through, so most of the time she has her hair in corn rows and braids.

She wears no make-up, and has an athletic, simplistic style. Her pants are usually dark jeans or light brown khaki-like pants. Her tops usually consist of various sports jerseys or plain t-shirts, and a sweater. Her shoes are athletic and practical, no heels, flats, or flip-flops, choosing to wear running shoes and every so often a pair of brown hiking sandals.

A button of Che Guevara is pinned to the back of her backpack.

Personality

Young Communist League Supervisor:
"A real examplary girl. A faithful Communist with a true Revolutionary spirit. She will do her country proud in the future."

All God's Children Adoption Website wrote:
"This is Graciela. She is 15-years-old, but wise-beyond her years. She has a lot of potential. She accelerates in school, and loves sports and reading. She speaks French-Creole, Spanish, and is learning English. Years of uncertainty have made her weary. She is a shy one, but all she needs is a loving home and people she can trust to bring her out of her shell."

Vallery Kaplan(Adopted Mother) in an e-mail wrote:
"..It is taking her sometime to warm up to Ben and I. I took her clothes shopping when she first got here, because her clothes were little more than rags. She ran away as soon as we walked into the mall though! Thankfully, it only took me a little while to find her just a few blocks away.. I suppose she is just not much of a shopping girl...
.. We've got her enrolled in school and she is catching onto English fast. But she spends all her time by herself, she usually goes off bicycle-riding alone or she stays in her bedroom and reads. The only activity she has is gymnastics which she is marvelous at, but she also has no friends in...
...I still can't help but feel disappointed she is not much of a shopper. At least I get to dress her in pretty gymnastics clothes..."

Student wrote:
"...........Isn't that like, Spanish for 'thank you' or something?"

History

The daughter of a Cuban Medical Doctor father, and a Haitian Nurse mother, and was born in Cuba. She was part of the Young Communist League of Cuba since age 8 and attended boarding school, rarely visiting her parents who mostly worked in Haiti.

At age 15 she took a rare vacation with her parents in Haiti. During that break a devistating earthquake struck, crumbling the house they were staying in, with them in it. Graciela was the only survivor in the house, escaping the collapsed home with only minor injuries. She was later taken by rescue workers in the confusion and moved across the border to the Dominican Republic and put into a christian adoption center.

She was adopted about a year later by an American couple, Vallery and Benjamin Kaplan, at age 16 and taken to the nation known infamously as the "Empire" in her previous home of Cuba.

So begins...

Graciela Kaplan's Story

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