Over my two years of reading books at high school, “How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents” by Julia Alvarez, was similar to the books read in freshman year. It was a hard and amazing book to read. When I was done with the book, I wondered what had inspired Alvarez to write the book. It turns out that the book was similar to an autobiography.
According to Julia Alvarez’s website, she was born in New York City and was raised in the Dominican Republic after her parents moved back to their homeland. The family stayed there until they escaped to America in 1960 to get away from the deep trouble when both of her parents were involved with a group of people who were plotting against the dictatorship (juliaalvarez.com). Similar to this, in Garcia Girls they were trying to escape from the secret police in the vignette “The Blood of the Conquistadors” in Part III of the book (Alvarez 195-289). The secret police of the Dominican Republic were suspicious of the four daughter’s father, Carlos Garcia and the family believed that it was best for the family to move out of the country with the help of Vic, a CIA member.
In Alvarez’s life in America, she first had a hard time learning how to speak and write in English. Many bullies teased her because of hard time with English (juliaalvarez.com). She tried very hard to learn English and speak and write the language. She then “discovered the welcoming world of the imagination of books” (juliaalvarez.com). Like her life in reality, the book also shared a same experience of bullying. In the vignette “Trespass” of Garcia Girls, the Garcia Girls had only come to America for one year. The girls are new to the culture and do not really know what it really is. Here, Carla was bullied by boys because she had just begun to hit puberty. The boys teased her about her flat breasts and her hairy legs (Alvarez 153). Unlike Alvarez, Carla escaped the torment by going to boarding school. On the other hand, Alvarez became inspired to write, because of the American experience when she was in school.
The best character that fits with Julia Alvarez in Garcia Girls is actually the Garcia daughters. Each of the four daughters had a special characteristic that was part of Julia Alvarez. Like Carla, Alvarez was humiliated because of her language skills. Like Sandra, Alvarez wanted to fit into American society. Like Yolanda, Alvarez was a heavy reader and writer; mostly on poems. Like Sofia, Alvarez was active in her life, not necessarily sexual.
“How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents” was the first novel that Alvarez had published in 1991 (juliaalvarez.com). She had also written small magazines and entered in writing contests. She wrote the book because it was her life long dream to become a writer. She wanted to get her story out to the world to read. She later wrote other novels and even a collection of her poems in two books.
Compared to other books of the same genre, this book stood out amongst them. There were many more dramatic events compared to other books such as “House on Mango Street” by Sandra Cisneros and “The Color Purple” by Alice Walker. Throughout reading Garcia Girls, I wondered how so many horrific events could happen to them. One terrible event led to another. Within every vignette of the book, there was at least one plot that marked what the section was about. I constantly felt bad for the daughters that they had to endure all of the traumatizing events while they were in the Dominican Republic and in America. Some of these events were the secret police in front of Fifi, the stalker in the green car that followed Carla, the drunken female stranger that kissed the father of the children in front of Sandi, and the nightmares that Yolanda. While reading Garcia Girls, I wondered whether it was bad luck or it was just that Julia Alvarez wanted readers to believe that there are many people that have worse lives than them.
Compared to the books with the same genre, “How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents” contained actually less violent activity. Usually in books with the genre of this kind would include some form of rape and/ or murder. The Garcia Girls is much less graphic compared to the others. It may have sex within the story but it is not as if it was violent. It was more of a form of pleasure and the characters were actually willing to have sex with the men. Besides the smuggling out of the country, none of the other acts in the book were partly or even illegal at all.
Compared to other books, this book was also much more confusing and unusual on the way that it was written. Alvarez wrote the book in reverse chronological order; a way of organization that is rarely ever seen. I later learned that the reason why she had written that was because she was making a cycle in which the reader can read the book continuously and it would still flow. The syntax in which Julia Alvarez writes in is extremely different compared the syntax in which I typically read every day. It occasionally takes me a long time understand what she is talking about. That style of writing was frustrating. In my past blog posts, I discussed how I was not able to understand until the very end and that I may have to repeat sometimes. It took an average of two to three repeats in order to understand it. The book is also much predictable compared to other books. There is a pattern in which the book shows and it is how there is a plot in every section. Except “Snow,” the vignette shows a scene in which there some form of sexual activity or big plot.
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