How The Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent By Julia Alvarez Summary
How the Garcia Girls lost their Accents. In How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accents, Julia Alvarez discusses the four girls’transition from the Dominican Republic to America. The Garcia’s are an immigrant family who must find a balance between their identity as Dominicans and their new identities as Americans. Yolanda, the sister on whom the story primarily focuses, must find a balance between the strict and old fashioned culture she comes from and the new, innovative and radical culture she is now learning to embrace. Immigration challenges Yolanda and her sisters to create a bi-cultural identity—a task at which they ultimately fail. They embark on a search to find themselves, feeling torn between two distinctly different and opposing
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They are expected to remain pure until marriage, and if a woman’s virtue is compromised, it is a scandal that brings shame and disgrace to her family. Sofia, the youngest Garcia daughter, cannot even go and buy contraception in the Dominican Republic because it would be considered shameful to her family. Carlos Garcia always cautioned his girls “I don’t want loose girls in my family” (Alvarez 28). When Sofia returns to the Dominican Republic after living in the United States, she begins to date her uncle’s illegitimate son Manuel. Manuel is extremely controlling and sexist, and also refuses to use protection. Sofia’s sisters go on an adventure with their cousin Mundin to a sleazy motel in town and see Manuel’s car. The sisters are outraged that Sofia is sleeping with Manuel and decide to go home. Once the sisters are home Mami asks them where Sofia is and they say she is with Manuel. Mami is outraged that Sofia is with a man unsupervised and is afraid this will cause a huge scandal to the family and ruin Sofia’s reputation. Yolanda also experiences the old world values about sex with her college boyfriend, Rudy Elmenherst, saying “I’d just gotten over worrying I’d get pregnant from proximity, or damned by God should I die at that very moment…” (Alvarez 97). The beliefs of the Garcia family and Yolanda show the old world values of the Dominican
They are expected to remain pure until marriage, and if a woman’s virtue is compromised, it is a scandal that brings shame and disgrace to her family. Sofia, the youngest Garcia daughter, cannot even go and buy contraception in the Dominican Republic because it would be considered shameful to her family. Carlos Garcia always cautioned his girls “I don’t want loose girls in my family” (Alvarez 28). When Sofia returns to the Dominican Republic after living in the United States, she begins to date her uncle’s illegitimate son Manuel. Manuel is extremely controlling and sexist, and also refuses to use protection. Sofia’s sisters go on an adventure with their cousin Mundin to a sleazy motel in town and see Manuel’s car. The sisters are outraged that Sofia is sleeping with Manuel and decide to go home. Once the sisters are home Mami asks them where Sofia is and they say she is with Manuel. Mami is outraged that Sofia is with a man unsupervised and is afraid this will cause a huge scandal to the family and ruin Sofia’s reputation. Yolanda also experiences the old world values about sex with her college boyfriend, Rudy Elmenherst, saying “I’d just gotten over worrying I’d get pregnant from proximity, or damned by God should I die at that very moment…” (Alvarez 97). The beliefs of the Garcia family and Yolanda show the old world values of the Dominican