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How the García Girls Lost Their Accents

Julia Alvarez

Start date: March 1, 2019

Finish date: March 31, 2019

Discussion: Past Book Discussions 2014-19

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Dec 2019: The World That We Knew by Alice Hoffman
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last updated Nov 30, 2020 08:05AM

December 2017 Buddy Read: Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate
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Mar 03, 2016 Brina rated it it was amazing

Shelves: hispanic-culture, 500-great-books-women, julia-alvarez

How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent is Julia Alvarez fictionalized account of her childhood when she moved with her family from the Dominican Republic to New York following the 1960 Trujillo revolution. Her story is told in alternating chapters through the eyes of the four Garcia sisters- Carla, Sandi, Yolanda, and Sofia (Fifi) and follows them in reverse chronological order from adulthood to early childhood. Alvarez displays the Garcia de la Torre clan's love for the island on their path to How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent is Julia Alvarez fictionalized account of her childhood when she moved with her family from the Dominican Republic to New York following the 1960 Trujillo revolution. Her story is told in alternating chapters through the eyes of the four Garcia sisters- Carla, Sandi, Yolanda, and Sofia (Fifi) and follows them in reverse chronological order from adulthood to early childhood. Alvarez displays the Garcia de la Torre clan's love for the island on their path to becoming Americans. I read this as a reread for a comfort read for myself as Alvarez is one of my favorite authors, and I rate the Garcia's story 4.5 stars.

I fell in love with Julia Alvarez' writing when I was in high school and college studying Latin American culture. Alvarez along with Allende and Cristina Garcia helped forge my love for Latin America that has shaped my entire life. Her writing is a mix of true stories, humor, and the angst the immigrant experience that has me reaching for her books every few years. The Garcia Girls is a fictionalized autobiography with Yolanda, the third daughter, being Alvarez' persona. Like Alvarez, Yolanda is a writer who begged for her own typewriter, studied literature in boarding school and college, and eventually became a literature professor at a myriad of colleges. Yet, like her true counterpart, Yolanda still yearns for the island. A first generation immigrant, she straddles two countries. This is the life that the sisters faced in New York while also dealing with parents who still clung to old world ideals. Alvarez paints a picture of a coming of age that was stressful for the girls as they had the added element of parents not used to the new culture which they were living in. This leads to memorable dialogues among the characters, especially the two parents.

One of my favorite sections of the narrative is when an adult Yolanda returns to the Dominican Republic and asks her aunts where she can find guavas. Her aunts and cousins take guavas and other tropical fruits for granted living on an island. Yet, it is these little things that the Garcias miss the most having grown up in New York. Guavas, native flora and fauna, a compound of extended family. Yolanda eventually goes on an adventure to procure guavas, showing her independent American spirit. All the girls attend boarding school to learn to be Americans, and wow their cousins with the new found culture that they obtain. Yet this dual culture comes at a price- when the girls come to visit the Dominican Republic, they always are excited to return to the States.

Other than poetry anthologies, this was Alvarez first full length novel. It is evident as her writing is not as polished as with some of her later writing. I have read her later works as well and her voice is better established in her later writings. Once she gained tenure in college her books take on a more relaxed tone and in two of her later nonfiction accounts I found myself laughing throughout the text. Yet, the Garcia Girls is what put Alvarez on the Latin American writing stage. It is a poignant work that addresses the Latin American immigrant experience, that I highly recommend to all. ...more

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Feb 07, 2019 Book Concierge rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: family, book-club, immigrant-experience, latino-literature, sisters, concierge, strong-women, dominican-republic, library

The García family flees the Dominican Republic for the United States amid political unrest. The four sisters – Carla, Sandra, Yolanda, and Sofia – find 1960s New York City very different from the upper-middle-class life they knew “back home.” Absent their maids and extended family, the García girls do their best to assimilate into the mainstream; they iron their hair, forget their Spanish, and meet (and date) boys without chaperones.

This is a wonderfully entertaining look at the immigrant exper The García family flees the Dominican Republic for the United States amid political unrest. The four sisters – Carla, Sandra, Yolanda, and Sofia – find 1960s New York City very different from the upper-middle-class life they knew “back home.” Absent their maids and extended family, the García girls do their best to assimilate into the mainstream; they iron their hair, forget their Spanish, and meet (and date) boys without chaperones.

This is a wonderfully entertaining look at the immigrant experience and at the strong family ties that see these sisters (and their parents) through a tumultuous adolescence and young adulthood. The novel is told in alternating perspectives, focusing on a different sister in each chapter, and also moving back in time, from 1989 to 1956.

When exploring their childhood in the DR, Alvarez allows the innocence of youth to be apparent. Children may sense that something isn’t quite right, but they typically don’t know the realities facing their parents. The family’s sudden departure for the United States is at first a great adventure, but the reality of reduced circumstances and cramped city apartments (instead of a large family compound with gardens and servants) quickly makes the girls homesick. Once assured that there is no going back, they struggle to fit in with their peers at school. They don’t want to stick out due to dress, language, food, or customs. With their assimilation, however, comes a greater clash between the girls and their parents’ “old world” values.

The use of multiple narrators and non-linear time line, however, made for an uneven reading experience. I would be invested in one sister’s story, and then jerked to a different time and place and narrator with little or no warning. Some members of my F2F book club found this so distracting that they lowered their ratings significantly. But for me the “confusion” is indicative of the immigrant experience. Each immigrant ultimately has to choose the extent to which she will adopt the customs, foods, dress of her new environment, and how much of her native customs, foods, dress to keep and share with her new neighbors. The García girls draw comfort from their deep roots in the Dominican Republic while bravely and enthusiastically facing and embracing their future as Americans. ...more

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