How The Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents

HOW THE GARCIA GIRLS LOST THEIR ACCENTS

This book is a story about 4 sisters who tell their stories about living on an island in the Dominican Republic , and then moving to New York . What is different about this book is the fact that you have different narrators telling you the story , jumping back and forth from past to present . This is effective because it gives you different view point’s from each of the sisters . It may also detract from the narrative because of the fact that it’s confusing to the reader . This is a style of writing that has been recognized and analyzed by critics . Julia Alvarez is a well- known writer and in a way , mirrors events that happened in her own life , in her book . Looking into her life , it show’s that she went through an experience somewhat like the sisters . I interviewed an immigrant , not from the same ethnic back ground as the sisters , but a Japanese immigrant . This was a very interesting conversation because there were a lot similarities in adjusting to living in the United States . This book shows a viewpoint of the sisters coming to America . I classify this as American literature because the book was written in a style that would make it easy to read for a people to read here . There is mixed language , and there is really no strong presence of Spanish being spoken . Alvarez is a interesting writer because she uses writing as a tool to find out what she is thinking , and to understand things ,while developing books that are fun to read . If you take this book for example , it’s what she thinks about immigration and her understanding of the subject . This book was made for everyone to see what the immigration experience is like . Immigration appears to be an experience of struggle , and change shared by immigrants no matter what the origin .

Alvarez was born in New York and then moved to the Dominican Republic shortly after she was born . Later in 1960 , she immigrated back to New York and received her education in boarding schools . She has spent a majority of her life in the United States , and considers herself to be an American , yet she likes to bridge the two worlds of Latina and American culture . Most of her stories have hints of her Dominican roots but she show’s her experiences with human insight . Even though her books may be seen as for Latin p...

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.... The problem with this is the fact that through generations , assimilation ends up hurting the family customs and traditions . The accent of the native tongue is lost , certain holidays may not be celebrated the same , and American born generations feel that they might have lost their identity , making it hard to fit in either cultures . Was is significant about this book is the fact it’s like telling a story to someone about something that happened when they were kid . Anyone can relate because we all have stories from when we were kids . Alvarez presents this method of writing by making it so that it doesn’t feel like it’s a story about Latin Americans , when you know it really is . Alvarez’s mission is to show everyone what she has come to understand about ethnic identity , in a way everyone can see .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1)HOW THE GARCIA GIRLS LOST THEIR ACCENT BY JULIA GARCIA

PLUME BOOKS , (COPYWRITE 1991) NY,NY

2)INTERVIEW W. CHRIS TOKIKO BY BRYAN YEE

11/12/99 SF,CA

3)VOICESFROM THE GAPS 11/12/99 WWW.HTTP://VOICES.CLA.EDU/AUTHORS/JULIAALVAREZ.HTML

4)JULIA ALVAREZ (MAJOR THEMES /BIOGRAPHY)

HTTP://WWW.EMORY.EDU/ENGLISH/BAHRI/ALVAREZ.HTML