How The Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent By Julia Alvarez Chapter Summary

Being an immigrant of another country in a new country can change someone drastically.How The Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, a novel by Julia Alvarez, about how 4 sisters started their lives in The Dominican Republic and then had to the move to the United States and adjust. Yolanda moved from the Dominican Republic to the United States at a young age and it changed how she saw herself and how she defined herself. Yolanda being a Dominican Immigrant changed her name, made her have an early loss of innocence, and eventually made her lose control of herself.

ersity of North Carolina Charlotte Americanization of the Garcia Family Patrick Daniel Smith Student Number: 801038231 AMST 2050 Dr. Benny Andres 19 March 2018 Julia Alverez, the author of How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, tells a story of four sisters who adapt through their Americanization. The Garcia family moved from the Dominican Republic to the United States, fleeing the Dictator Trujillo. The Garcia girls develop more individuality in America than they would in the Dominican Republic due to having more freedom of expression, and the lack of status quo that was previously held over them in the Dominican Republic. This ability to adapt to American society seems to be easier the younger you are. The newly American family

Sofía attempts to take hold of her life by being sexuality active. In How the García Girls Lost Their Accents, Sofía is said to be the one who has “non-stop boyfriends”, and is always the one that the others go to for advice on men. This may come as a surprise considering she is the youngest. This is very much against her parents’ beliefs. They want their daughters to stay pure and celibate. After Carlos finds love letters exchanged between Sofía and her boyfriend, Sofía runs away to be with the man of her dreams. This causes Sofía’s relationship with her father to significantly weaken. Sofía engages in premarital sex and becomes pregnant with a child.

In the dominican republic the dictatorship of Rafel trujillo created lots of problems for the citizens. Minerva said “ it’s about time women had a voice in running our country.” (Alvarez , 10) This shows that women didn’t have a voice. “Don Enrique claims Trujillo needs help with this country . Don Enriques daughter says its about time women have a voice in this country.” (Alvarez ,10) This shows that the family was afraid they would get in trouble for mentioning they would help the country. Minerva and her sisters wanted more freedom. They lived normal lives “all while they fight against Trujillo and become national heroes.” (Minou Mirabal)

One of the main sources of tension in How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accents, written by Julia Alvarez, are the sisters search for a personal identity among contrasting cultures. Many of the characters felt pressure from two sources, the patriarchal culture that promotes traditional gender roles and society of nineteen-sixties and seventies America. Dominican tradition heavily enforces the patriarchal family and leaves little room for female empowerment or individuality, whereas in the United States, the sixties and seventies were times of increasingly liberal views and a rise in feminist ideals. This conflict shaped the identities of the characters in Alvarez’s novel and often tore the characters apart for one another.

In the book Alvarez informs us that this takes place during Trujillo 's reign over the Dominican Republic in the 1930’s to the 1960’s. Throughout history dictators have risen and fallen all across the world. Many have been seen as evil, and sometimes good to others, but no matter what a persons view tend to be there are some who even consider them god. Due to a dictators extensive powers and complete control over every aspect of a persons life this is what comes to be. Trujillo is just the same, at first his true motives were questioned and it wasn’t apparent to all what he really was. As the Mirabel sisters grow up it becomes clear that Trujillo is in control of more of their lives than it may seemed. Trujillo leads a complete authoritarian rule over the Dominican Republic with spies everywhere, this can suggest that he trying to assume the role of a terrible god, who is always watching and ready to punish. While all

The novel How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, by Julia Alvarez, illustrates these challenges. Throughout the novel, we see how different aspects of culture shock impact the Garcia family. In this essay I will discuss how particular events change each family member’s Dominican cultural values and identity.

She was a Dominican author who had given a meaning to themes in writing and personal feelings. As a Child, Àlvarez was exposed to different culture and language, so she relied on writing and books as an escape from reality. Through her writings she had discovered many things about herself, she realized she could build stories that had defined her way of life. She became a published author at the age of 41 in 1991. Her first successful published book was, How the García Girls Lost Their Accent.

Julia Alvarez also uses language to show how the four Garcia girls adjust to living in a new, and to them alien, culture. The protagonist in this novel is the family Garcia de la Torre, a wealthy, aristocratic family from the Santo Domingo, who can trace their genealogy back to the Spanish

In the novel Like Water for Chocolate, Laura Esquivel exposes her strong feminist attitude through a controlling first person limited narration and a detailed, descriptive portrayal of the characters. This exploitation of feminist views supports two major themes: change in traditional attitudes towards authority and freedom of expression. In this novel, Laura Esquivel shows how Mexican women can overcome the powerful traditional authority of men and the traditional mindset of women; and how women can overcome society's suppression and express themselves freely. . These two themes have a direct

The traditional effeminate characteristics portrayed within the psyche of many female characters introduced in ‘’La Reina del Sur’’ not excluding Teresa first presented in Sinaloa, revolve around their physique and nature, with the outcomes of the female characters often being defined relative to the impact of the male ‘’hero’’. This issue more often than not leads to female characters being silent, mistreated, oppressed and/or rescued, perfectly captured through a genuine statement made by the protagonist’s first love El Güero Dávila as he unknowingly encapsulates the insignificance of women caught in the narco world ‘’ Porque, si a mí me va muy bien, tí tambíen pero, si me va mal, es requete gacho’’. Even though El Güero spoke about Teresa from nowhere but a place of love, much of what he had to say completely disregarded her life and opinion. While the telenovela travels through Mexican, Spanish, Moroccan, Russian and Colombian cultures the prejudices faced by women are unchanging. The lives of women within the narco world can in no way dictate the lives of the men. Considering this, the emergence of Teresa as the telenovela develops and her complete ignorance of the traditional culture sets up the story to not only be considered an entertaining thriller but a means of tackling cultural flaws that have been seen for

In the short story “The Kiss”, Sofia is introduced as the youngest daughter of Carlos. Carlos is an older gentleman who is stuck in his old ways and they way life is in the Dominican Republic. Being a father of four girls, his daughter Sofia is the only one who decided to live her life her way without worrying what her father would say. Sofia is a rebel due to how she goes against everything her father wants her to do, while her sisters’ watch in envy. In the book she is not the prettiest sister, however, she’s always had more boyfriends and got the most attention from men.

My understanding of Colombian culture was deepened during the interactive oral. The role of gender and the political environment of Macondo were discussed. During the discussion, we credited women with more power than they seem to have in One Hundred Years of Solitude. In Colombian culture, women play the role of a caretaker, watching over their families. The matriarch of the Buendías, Úrsula Iguarán is practical and wise and looks after her husband José Arcadio Buendía and prevents him from compulsively spending his money. She puts in the most effort to save her family from falling apart. After Úrsula's death, the Buendía household reduces to turmoil. Marquéz illustrates society’s dependence on women and how men take women for granted.

In the book, How the García girls lost their accent, by Julia Alvarez, who utilizes rhetorical devices in the passage chosen to develop the conflict that Yolanda is facing in the story by using imagery, simile, and anaphora in order to evince how Yolanda’s conflict with her husband John plays a role in her horrible breakdown and her journey to revive the love she had for her native language and culture.

In “The Mother,” the narrator and her family have fled their home country, the Dominican Republic, because of the country’s dictatorship. The narrator, Laura, describes those years as a series of “disappearing friends, sleepless nights, house arrest” and only after a narrow escape did they escape from that world to America (2758). Their new worry is that immigration will send them back to that traumatic life. The last bit of action in the short story is Laura’s meeting with the social worker, Sally O’Brien. The main setting is America, and vignettes of Laura’s memories from her life in the Dominican Republic are distant memories. In “Woman Hollering Creek,” the focus is on Cleófilas’s wedding and marriage–the stage of her trauma. Unlike “The Mother,” “Woman Hollering Escape” shows the fear within the trauma and not what came after escape. Cleófilas describes the new normal for the telenovelas she loved as a girl the same way she views her own life: with “no happy ending in sight” (2777).