Julia Alvarez Research Paper

Salomé Ureña de Henríquez is one of the most influential poets of the Dominican Republic in the nineteenth century. Her roles as a daughter, writer, patriot, teacher, wife, and mother blended throughout her life, and inspired her acclaimed poems. As an advocate for women’s education, she opened the doors of higher education to the women of her period and then on.

Francis Martinez  Literary Analysis “First Muse”        The story “First Muse” by Julia Alvarez tell us about her childhood in the Dominican  Republic and her life in the United States. Since she started reading the thousand and one  night book under her bed she saw herself reflected in the dark haired almond eyed girl on the  book cover. Alvarez compared herself with the bright ambitious girl stuck in a kingdom that  didn”t think female were very important. Scheherazade gave Julia the courage to explore the  power of storytelling. When Alvarez came to the United States it was very difficult for her  especially for a child who got teased on the playground because of her accent. Julia had a lot  of obstacle in her life but she overcome all

After Julia and her family got used to living in New York, getting accustomed to the type of buildings and their new environment in general became easier but being able to be seen through two different personas was much harder. Julia expressed this constant dilemma in knowing how to represent both her Dominican and now American side without losing “Julia”. The poem “Bilingual Sestina”, represents this challenge and how Julia found herself adopting english into her life with the chance of losing touch with spanish. That is what this poem deals with, the loss of a special feeling through the gradual loss of a language, “even spanish failed us back then when we saw how frail a word is when faced with the thing it names”(Julia Alvarez's "Bilingual

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.

Caminero-Santangelo, Marta. 2007. On Latinidad: U.S. Latino Literature and the Construction of Ethnicity. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida.

Cristina Henriquez’, The Book of Unknown Americans, folows the story of a family of immigants adjusting to their new life in the United States of America. The Rivera family finds themselves living within a comunity of other immigrants from all over South America also hoping to find a better life in a new country. This book explores the hardships and injustices each character faces while in their home country as well as withina foreign one, the United States. Themes of community, identity, globalization, and migration are prevalent throughout the book, but one that stood out most was belonging. In each chacters viewpoint, Henriquez explores their feelings of the yearning they have to belong in a community so different than the one that they are used to.

The autobiography When I was Puerto Rican, written by Esmeralda Santiago, tells a story of a poor girl trying to succeed. The settings in this novel have an important influence on Esmeralda. They influence her behavior and change her ideals as an adult. Negi goes through many changes based on the challenges she faces by moving to new locations where society is different. All of these changes allow her to become a stronger person. When she lives in El Mangle, Negi has to face extreme prejudice against her upbringing as a jibara. When she leaves Puerto Rico to move to Brooklyn, she is forced to face an entirely different society. All of these events that took place in Esmeralda’s childhood had a significant impact in shaping her into an adult.

Judith Ortiz Cofer a Latin American author of short stories, poetry, autobiography, young adult fiction, and essays, as a young child migrated to Mainland America from Puerto Rico with her family, moving into an apartment complex with other people of Latin descent. Although, she spent most of her years in the Continental U.S. her writings are reflective of the strong latin heritage that her mother undoubtedly instilled in her from a young age. This is clear in her short story “Nada” where the narrator makes references to the hispanic community that live at an apartment complex in New Jersey. Cofer’s style of writing and experiences in her life are brought out in this story as well as many more of her writings. She includes some Spanish words throughout the story and ideals of the hispanic culture.

Richard Blanco’s diverse background makes him relatable for people of multinational upbringings. His writing thoroughly appealed to me because he did such a good job capturing the emotions of a child coming into a new world. Having experienced that, I wanted to see if I could have that effect on people. I used some of the techniques that Blanco uses, in my poem “New Identity”, to familiarize the reader with what he has been through. Richard Blanco accustoms the reader to his experiences by using figurative language, diverse diction, and allusions.

Summary- In her essay “Se Habla Español,” Tanya Maria Barrientos discusses her struggle of being an English speaker with Latino heritage, her story to search for a sense of belonging. In childhood, she tries to Americanize herself and stay away from any Latino features, including Spanish. Later in her life, as the society become more welcoming to different ethnic groups, it is natural for her to embrace her own group; but her limitation on Spanish causes Barrientos feeling distant. However, Barrientos believes that there are others in the same dilemma and she encourages those to take the pride to be who they are.

Poetry is a form of art and literature that allows a reader to feel what the author wants them to. Pat Mora is a Mexican-American woman that wrote the two poems “Sonrisas” and “La Migra”. “Sonrisas” is about the two types women that are seen in two different rooms, while “La Migra” is about a typical exchange between the Border Patrol and a Mexican maid attempting to crossing the border from Mexico into the United States. Both of these poems show the reader what it is like to be Mexican-American and describes the experiences each speaker in the poem is having.

　　Natalie Diaz's debut collection, When My Brother Was An Aztec, is a book of poems that accounts Diaz's skills in imaginative and lyrical language. The collection explores her past in unexpected form and images, tackling the subjects of her family, most notably her meth addicted brother, life on the reservation, and being a Native American woman. In this collection Diaz has filled the pages with rich and interesting images that rely on Native American culture, experiences of her own as a Native American woman, and mythology. As I read this collection I was struck by how heavy her images rested on the page and yet how weightless they seemed to fly off.

The first issue that many Latino author’s address is the problems in many Latin American countries. In Esperanza Rising Esperanza’s family faces the backlash of the Mexican revolution. Esperanza’s family has land in Mexico which makes them a target for many unhappy citizens in Mexico. Esperanza’s mother has to explain to her that, "the wealthy still own most of the land while some of the poor have not even a garden plot. There are cattle grazing on the big ranches, yet some peasants are forced to eat cats" (Ryan, 25). Eventually Esperanza’s father is murdered by bandit’s and they are forced to leave the dangerous country. Mexico is not the only place with major issues. Young Adult literature often reaches into the historical hardships of other Latin countries, such as the dictators of the Dominican Republican in Julia Alvarez’s novel Before We Were Free. Alvarez talks about the distrust of the police, stating “Back home, [her father] had been tailed by the secret police for months and the family had only narrowly escaped capture their last day on the Island” (Alvarez 233). Young Adult literature reflects this often as a background story, forcing the protagonists into the environment they are in. As well, it frames the families’ mindset and the hardships many have faced before

Rivera begins her paper by simply giving the reader a list of many of the works Denise Chavez has written during her literary career. It is through this list

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