The Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents By Julia Alvarez: Summary

Behind The Story of how the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents
Hispanic American Literature Summative Assessment
Savannah Blakely
April 27th 2015
English III Honors

Abstract
Julia Alvarez wrote an amazing and spectacular novel, with the name of “Howthe Garcia Girls Lost their Accents.” This paper will take you through a summary of the novel, and how the story begins, and ends. It will surely answer any questions you have after reading the book. By the three articles to help back up different information. The different themes that are shown in the story are very clear. The novel’s major themes that you will recognize includeacculturation and the coming of age. The novel is written in three parts, and in reverse chronological order which
you will notice while reading the summary. It may be confusing, but the author has a point behind why she done that. The reason why the novel is written the way it is, is to show flashbacks. For her to remember the person she once was when she lived on her home land, islands, on the Dominican Republic. It is to look back on all the differences between American and the islands. How things are different. You will see that family is really different. On the islands everyone is together everyone being; sisters, brothers, mothers, aunts,uncles, grandparents, and cousins; living very closely. And having a very close relationship. As shown in the paper once the Garcia family moves to the states; New York City, the Garcia family becomes distant with one another. The girls were growing into their teen hood and becoming young adults, getting in trouble and doing things they’re not supposed to be doing. Moving out, and conquering the American world full of different morals and ways to live then what they are used too, and taught. There were a couple of things you will see in this paper. As well, as the difference of each character and how they each played a role in the amazing and well written novel, “How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents.” The articles will go into deeper detail of how the novel was written. They will highlight certain aspects of the story that maybe unclear to the reader. Each scene of the story is important and ties together with another scene. Everything makes since at the end of the novel. And the articles are in this paper to help you understand fully what the author is trying portray, in different words. The articles may not be written by Julia Alvarez, herself. But all in all they dig deeper into what she was trying to say. They play a big role into the book reading process; so if you don’t comprehend what the author is trying to say in her work, there good to fall back on and get a better understanding.

Novel Summary
The well written novel How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents written by Julia Alvarez is a very good story, focusing on the Hispanic culture and showing stereotypes and troubles they face on a day to day basis.
The story is written in reverse order. The first part of the story portrays the four Garcia girls as adults, and facing day to day difficulties and dreams that they wish they were different, sometimes. The second half covers their adolescence, and the third section takes the reader back to when the girls were young children exploring the Dominican Republic. The story focuses on the troubles, and struggles of each of the family members; which is all squeezed into five chapters. The reasons of the flash back motive that she used in her story, symbolizes her memories of how she once
was.
The novel revolves the Garcia family which includes, the four girls; Yolanda, Carla, Sofia and Sandi. Also the parents, aunts, grandparents, and other close relatives. The story starts out with the Garcia family located in the states, New York to be exact. They came to visit the Dominican Republic for a family birthday party. They celebrate Carlos’ birthday. The second chapter titled “The kiss” focuses on the four girls’ love life. It tells how Sofia the youngest, got caught with love letters by her father, and that resulted in her moving out of the family home and moving in and marrying her German lover. She has a son from this man,that her father Carlos does not agree with. Sofia and her father had a rough relationship after the situation that had happened but that soon faded away once her son was born. The other sisters Sandra and Carla are in long- term relationships. But Yolanda is a different story; she got left by a man with the name of John. And secretly has a crush on her psychiatrist. The American morals of relationships just don’t go well for Yolanda. “I would never find someone who would understand my particular mix of Catholicism and agnosticism, Hispanic and American styles.”
There adolescence is the main view of the second part of the book. A major turning point in the novel is when Laura finds marijuana in Sofia’s dresser drawer. Sofia’s punishment consisted of her being removed from boarding school and going back to the Dominican Republic for a year. She dreaded that punishment. Also the chapter “Trespass” Is another chapter that is fulfilled with issues that the family had to deal with, and get used to because of the change they had in their life. We see that racism sexual violence is also an issue in the Hispanic culture, getting called all kinds of terrible names, and going through things those young girls or anybody should have to face. Carla is the victim of all of this. By being told by boys at school “Go back to where you came from you dirty spic!”And while walking home from school a child molester tries luring her in while he sits in his car and masturbates. Later that night Sandra witnesses at a family restaurant the host’s wife attempting to kiss her father on the way to the bathroom!
Overall the second part of the story shows the issues that the family faced due to coming into a new world, and facing things that they are not used too at all.
This next chapter is merely a collection of memories from theGarcia Family. This is the third part of the story where is shown the four girls young, and still living on the island in the Dominican Republic. This is the most political part of the whole novel. The chapters explain that in the years between 1956 and1970 is when the whole incident with Carlos and the military went down. This was a period of instability and oppression where they lived. And it all came to an end with one simple assassination in 1961. The united States of course was apart of it. They had central control over the military, and economy. The family was forced to flee because of the father’s opposition.
The second chapter“The Human Body” of the third part of the novel the four girls are young, and naïve. It describes that Yolanda and her close cousin Mundin are playing outside, they are really close, and are like best friends, the aunts get worried that Yolanda will end up being a tomboy, ad that is not acceptable of the culture. They get Yolanda a cowgirl outfit with a skirt she realizes that Mundin has the same kind of outfit so she wears it. Mundin soon becomes curious as if his cousin was really a girl. He asks Yolanda and Sofia to go to a barn that they all know is off limits to prove to him that they are girls. He uses a human body toy and clay to his advantage to get the girls to do what he had asked. They get caught by his mother and made them all return home.Sandra is a very talented and creative young lady. She loves painting but her family feels that she needs to contain her creativity. Because of an incident of her seeing a man chained up, the man jumped out at her to attack her. Which caused her to break her arm from screaming to warn her art class.
The last two chapters just narrate different stories from each child’s perspective of their childhood memories. The chapter of “An American Surprise” goes into detail about how the girls feel about living in New York City. And learning all different things that they are not used too. It is seen since the move to New York the girls’ innocence was left behind in the island’s of the Dominican Republic.

Annotated Bibliography Castells, R. The Silence of Exile In How The Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents.
“Not only words, but also the manner of speech is significant to the story of the Garcia girls’ coming-of-age in America. Language, in both its form and its content, is an important unifying agent here, every bit as essential as the strong family connections throughout this loosely woven work. Communication is of fundamental concern for each member of this immigrant family as they struggle with the strange vocabulary, difficult grammar, and incomprehensible voice rhythm of their newly acquired English in order to tell their stories.” The aspect of Castells article is correctly stating how much the Garcia family had to face, moving to America. The English language is the primary the focuspoint of the article I chosen. Language is a powerful symbol between the four sisters. It shows the bicultural assimilation into the American way of life. Besides the four girls just becoming successful in the English language, the article did not demonstrate the four girls becoming successful in the American way of life, They are shown in the novel itself that they have plenty of ‘social life’ issues, which include relationships. None of the girls could actually keep a strong American relationship going, because guys couldn’t handle the mixing of cultures. How Hispanics do some things different than Americans. Hispanics are strongly known for family. Family is very important to the Hispanic culture and they are really close, meaning they tell each other everything, not always but most of the time. The article also shows the displacement the girls feel, trying to contemplate their identity, and culture. While living in the states. The article pulls the part of the story when Yolanda don’t know what to do, she is not entirely happy living in the states but English had become her dominant language, there was no way she could go back to the Dominican Republic with her adopted language. But when she does return to the islands for a party she is nervous and scared about having confusion between the two cultures she is now familiar with. Considering this article it just ties everything together and makes more sense. That not everything is simple. The family went through a lot, and got forced to move away from their homeland to another place. And they had some difficulties along the way and that is what this article shown. It went in to detail that not everything the girls went through was easy they had to work for what they wanted. Language happened to be one of the big concepts, learning a different language but still remembering where they came from and how they all became the individuals they didn’t know they are. Each girl struggles with finding themselves, and who they want to be.

Luis, William. 92008, August 19). "A Search for identity in Julia Alvarez 's How The Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents." Callaloo (2000): 839-849.

In the article “A search for identity in Julia Alvarez’s: How the Garcia Girls lost Their Accents”; focuses on the identity of each of the four girls in the novel. It goes into detail about the removal of the Caribbean people being took away from their home, for political and economic reasons .Which causes not only depression but tension between the culture of the country and origin. The past represents the desire to be someone else, and figure out who they wanted to become. Did they want to obey and move off their land? Or put their foot down and stay where they were, where they grew up and formed relationships and bonds with everybody.This relates to the girls, they all have faced some type of difficulty from having to move to America. Coincidently the results end up have a similar effect as the Caribbean’s being took away from their homes. Sandra searches for her identity using her creativity. She uses her artistic creativity to her advantage, to find who she is, and who she wants to be. But ends up having a mental breakdown due to people not being satisfied with her art, the breaking of her arm does not help the situation. Sandra feels invisible and muted from her family because of this situation. Sofia also tries searching for her identity through dating a bunch of guys, and when they do her wrong it teaches her moral lessons. Sofia was the youngest daughter, and the first to leave the house with a young man named Auto. Sofia does end up finding who she is and who she wants to be. Carla becomes a psychologist, by using her dysfunctional family to an advantage. She took all her home problems to her work and thought about what was going on to make a more homey feel around her parents’ home. Lastly, Yolanda. Yolanda the oldest daughter; searches and searches for who she wants to be and just came to the conclusion that she feels more comfortable being an “American” rather than a Dominican immigrant.She prefers English speaking over the Spanish language she had learned while growing up.
Cantiello, Jessica Wells. "That Story about the Gun": Pseudo-Memory in Julia Alvarez 's Autobiographical Novels." (2011).

“The memory or rather pseudo memory is of my mother in a bathrobe at the window watching my progress down the block and around the corner until I am out of sight.”(56) This article titled “That Story about the Gun”: Pseudo- Memory in Julia Alvarez’s Autobiographical Novels, focuses on different scenes of the novel.
A ‘pseudo memory’ describes experiences that lie somewhere between fiction and memory. “Alvarez provides a useful idiom for understanding the ethos of her autobiographical novels.” It is written around a pseudo- memory that represents the emotional truth rather than a factual memory. The novel “How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents” is revolved around memory, and their flashbacks. The novel is based on events that happened in Alvarez’s own life. Which explains why the text is written the way it is. It Is to organize her thoughts and memories of growing up in a Dominican Culture then being forced over to America where they know nothing about. The article brings up the gun in the novel, which is a symbol of categorization between the different genres in the story, and the serial nature. It goes into detail of Yolanda’s trauma in her young life. Due to a situation that inquired a gun. This situation was held with the dictator of the Dominican Republic; Rafael Trujillo. It was when the father, Carlos was in the military and the family was forced to fee away from the Dominican islands. This auto bibliography writing, does a fantastic job or explaining the way the
novel was written and how it tied into the Author her self’s, life. It is very unique, and tied into the story nicely. Myself feels that she used this type of writing style in her novel for people non Hispanic, and Hispanic people to see that they go through a lot, just like everyone else. Their culture gets called all kinds of names for coming over to America. But her reason showed, not because they wanted to come over to America, but because they had too. But one thing in Alvarez’s work; her vocabulary used in her novel is complicated, it is mixed with truths and lies. And definitely memory, the article said not to always trust the memory. But it is a big aspect of the story.

References
Bibliography
Alvarez, J.(1992). How The Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents.Broadway: Plume.
Cantiello, J. W. (2011). "That Story about the Gun": Pseudo-Memory in Julia Alvarez 's Autobiographical Novels.
Castells, R. The Silence of Exile In How The Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents.
Luis, W. (2000). A Search for identity in Julia Alvarez 's How The Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents. Callaloo, 839-849.