Analysis Of How The Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, By Julia Alvarez

How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents explores Garcia’s family bond through the journey of them settling in as immigrants. The author, Julia Alvarez uses various incidents in the book to portray the importance of family and how the bonds of the family helped them to survive many stressful situations. The first incident that showed the family overcoming a difficult situation for the sake of family was in The Kiss Chapter. In the chapter, we saw a father-daughter conflict being unraveled.

This is when Yolanda is talking about her dating life and a lot of men at her college wanted to sleep with her but she said no because it was against her beliefs and values as a person. As soon as she said no to all of the men that came up to her they became uninterested in talking to her. This shows a culture difference because in the D.R dating life is a lot different in which there are less guys that she comes across. This is shown through the book when Yolanda says “Why I couldn’t keep them interested was pretty simple: I wouldn’t sleep with them”(Alvarez 87).

(Alvarez 1304) and is experiencing the same alienation feelings with her family. This leads to her antojos of guavas as she tries to reconnect with her heritage. Yolanda’s greatest conflict is finding her place in Dominican and American culture and her identity. She could never fully assimilate in American culture and way of life because of her strong Dominican background.

“The common denominator all Latinos have is that we want some respect. That 's what we 're all fighting for” - Cristina Saralegui. Judith Ortiz Cofer published the article, “The Myth of the Latin Woman,” where she expresses her anger towards stereotypes, inequality, and degradation of Latin Americans. Cofer explains the origins of these perceived views and proceeds to empower Latin American women to champion over them. Cofer establishes her credibility as a Latin American woman with personal anecdotes that emphasize her frustration of the unfair depiction of Latinos in society.

My Rhetorical Analysis Language is a part one’s identity and culture, which allows one to communicate with those of the same group, although when spoken to someone of another group, it can cause a language barrier or miscommunication in many different ways. In Gloria Anzaldua’s article, “How to Tame a Wild Tongue”, which was taken from her book Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, she is trying to inform her readers that her language is what defines her. She began to mention how she was being criticized by both English and Spanish Speakers, although they both make up who she is as a person. Then, she gave convincing personal experiences about how it was to be a Chicana and their different types of languages. Moreover, despite the fact that her language was considered illegitimate, Anzaldua made it clear that she cannot get rid of it until the day she dies, or as she states (on page 26) “Wild tongues can’t be, they can only be cut out.”

For as long as people can remember, the stereotype that men have “more power” than women in a relationship has been a relevant argument. In the novel How the García Girls Lost Their Accents the Author, Julia Alvarez, writes about four girls and part of that revolves around their relationships with men. In all of their relationships with men, he has the power in the relationship which means he makes the decisions for them. When they lived in the United States the girls and their mother had more say in the society. When they lived in the Dominican Republic men just saw them as submissive housewives who bear their children.

Situated near the U.S.-Mexico border during the early twentieth century is the fictional setting of Fort Jones, the outskirts of which is where Americo Paredes’ short story “Macaria’s Daughter” takes place. Emblematic of the disappropriation of Mexican land, as well as the increased marginalization of the Mexican people, the overbearing presence of Fort Jones reveals the struggle for preservation that characterizes the Mexican-American community of the story. “Macaria’s Daughter” is the tragic account of what happens in a small community when the upholding of Mexican values and institutions, and opposition to Anglo-American culture, become more important than a young woman’s life. In this essay, I will argue that “Macaria’s Daughter” is a text

Cristina Garcia’s Dreaming in Cuban is narrated through a multiplicity of voices as the characters struggle to reconcile their identities either within Cuba or as immigrants in America. These narrative accounts express the consequences of political unrest in Cuba (between 1972 and 1980) on the formation of a stable identity, as well as the consequences of such on family kinships. As such, the main themes expressed throughout the novel include displacement and distance, which are prominently reflected through the characterizations of Lourdes and Pilar, and their connection to Cuba and America. Cristina Garcia’s Dreaming in Cuban, then, explores the consequences of cultural exile on shaping a stable sense of self-identity, challenging the idea

Lee 1 Breann Lee Period 3 22 September 2014 Compare and Contrast Paper The books “How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents”, by Julia Alvarez and “Speak” by Laurie Halse Anderson are very similar novels. The main characters share similar experiences growing up in their New York setting that shapes them throughout the book. Both Melinda and Yolanda feel like outcasts because of their low self-esteem and their problems communicating. In “Speak” on Melinda's first day of school Anderson writes “I am clanless…I have entered high school with the wrong hair, the wrong clothes, and definitely the wrong attitude.

In How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, author Julia Alvarez explores how each Garcia girl attempts to develop her own views on what it means to be a sexually independent American woman, even as her family still believes her to be a Dominican lady, one

Confident Relationships Built on Language Wouldn’t it be exciting to grow up learning more than one language? Imagine being in Japan for a week on vacation with a group of friends, and one day decided to go to the oldest zoo in Japan, Ueno Zoo. To get to Ueno Zoo, riding the bullet train was a necessity, except knowing which line was the correct line, when to get off the bullet train, or even which ticket to buy was a daunting task. Nobody in your group has the confidence to ask the workers for help since they don’t have the knowledge of Japanese to help them.

Gloria Anzaldúa’s “La Prieta” tell her struggles with identity by talking about prejudices she dealt with while growing up. These prejudices, such as colorism, sexism, and heteronormativity, were not only held by people outside her social groups but within them as well. Anzaldúa goes on to explain the way identity is formed by intersecting factors and not only one aspect of someone’s life therefore denying one factor of identity can cause isolation and self-hatred. The fact that Anzaldúa developed faster than is deemed normal the first struggle in forming her identity.

A major theme of this novel is revolution. The definition of revolution is to overthrow a government or social order by force for either a new ruler or a new system. In simpler terms a revolution is an act of defiance to bring about social change. That social change can be on a large scale meaning it change an entire country, or it can happen one a small scale meaning it only changes or affects a family. In the text, we have seen resistance in many different ways by multiple characters such as Carlos and Yolanda.

A tongue is one of the most important body parts, if that’s what we shall call it, that a human being has. If it was not for the tongue, it would be a very quiet world. Gloria Anzaldúa, born in 1942, near the large Rio Grande Valley of South Texas, was bound to make a difference in lives before she ever knew it. When Gloria turned eleven she started to work in the fields as a migrant worker and then started on her family’s land after the passing of her father. In Gloria Anzaldúa’s the short story, How to Tame a Wild Tongue, she describes her upbringing and growing up in a dual culture society split in two.

Innocence is a trait that disappears with experience; we are unable to earn it back once we have lost it. We often correspond innocence with the idea of adolescence and unknowing and experience with wisdom and maturity. This is true in all cases, we grow each and every day and have many experiences where we learn new and different things, but we can never unlearn what was already taught we can only forget. “The Blue Bouquet” by Octavio Paz portrays this idea of the personal journey from innocence to experience or adolescence to maturity through showing the contrast between foreigners and commoners in Mexico. Through this contrast we discover how both characters had went through a journey from innocence to experience, this was shown through