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Summary Of How The Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents By Julia Alvarez

1016 Words5 Pages

Oftentimes, societal problems span across space and time. This is certainly evident in Julia Alvarez’s How the García Girls Lost Their Accents a novel in which women are treated peripherally in two starkly different societies. Contextually, the Dominican Republic and the United States are very dissimilar countries in terms of culture, economic development, and governmental structure which all contribute to the manner in which each society treats women. The García girls’ movement between countries helps display these distinctions. Ultimately, women are marginalized in both Dominican and American societies where they are treated as inferior and discriminated against as a result of factors including gender, race, culture, and social class. To …show more content…

After helping her boyfriend Rudy write a poem filled with sexual references she did not understand, Yolanda reflects on her upbringing: “Suddenly, it seemed to me, not only that the world was full of English majors, but of people with a lot more experience than I had . . . I cursed my immigrant origins” (Alvarez 94). As a result of Yolanda’s status as a catholic immigrant, she becomes increasingly marginalized in American society. Expression of one’s sexuality was largely encouraged during this time period and this was a belief that contradicted Yolanda’s upbringing. Accordingly, Yolanda was regarded as an outsider on her college campus solely due to her orthodox beliefs. As Yolanda is repeatedly encouraged by Rudy to have sex, she is increasingly seen as an outsider in his eyes and subsequently in the eyes of society. In this sense, Rudy’s actions represent the conformist pressures ingrained in American culture which prove to be a large source of internal conflict for Yolanda and the rest of the García girls. Additionally, the García girls also encounter a high degree of harassment upon immigrating to the United States. “‘Go back to where you came from’ . . . One of them, standing behind her in line, pulled her blouse out of her skirt . . . and lifted it high” (Alvarez 153). As a female immigrant, Carla experienced a high degree of discrimination resulting from the prevalence of the American fear of cultural diversity. As a response to this fear, Carla was sexually objectified. Logically, her standing as a female immigrant caused her to be subject to additional marginalization solely as a result of her

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