What Are The Challenges Faced By Carlos Garcia

PRL How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents

The Immigrant Experience After living in the Dominican Republic for years, it comes to no surprise that the Garcia family had many obstacles assimilating into American society and culture. As immigrants, they share the common stories and challenges many immigrants from different countries face. These include learning a new language, adopting and understanding a new mindset, and facing the tension between their former and new culture. Regardless of how long each character lived in their native home, they all faced the challenges of adopting American culture. For Carlos Garcia, he had to come to terms with the idea of the independent woman. Laura Garcia struggled with embodying the idea of an American

In his former home, Carlos Garcia took the pride of being the head of the household and being the sole provider for his family, however, when moving to America, he found himself being unable to maintain this role. He finds himself in a helpless situation when his daughters ask for dolls in the Spanish restaurant, but is unable to pay. “Back in the old country, everyone fought for the honor of paying” (Alvarez 189). This act of paying is seen as an honor, as a symbol of their masculinity and patriarchy and in this new country, he can’t, producing a feeling of shame when the Fannings pay for the dolls. Carlos insists that he can pay for it by “reaching in his back pocket for his wallet” but ultimately cannot, as he “exchanged a helpless look with Mami” (Alvarez 189). This feeling of helplessness would continue as his daughters grew. They grew to become feminists, adopting the American views towards sexuality and gender that contradicted those they left behind in their homeland. He makes it clear that he is against women being independent by stating, “I don’t want loose women in my family” (Alvarez 28). To no avail, Carlos is unable to control his daughters, especially his youngest, Sofia who runs away and struggles to reconcile with after the birth of his grandchildren. In all his struggle to maintain the Dominican values in his family, he fails as his daughters fully comply with

Coming to the United States at a young age, each daughter had to learn the English language and deal with bullying, especially Carla. Carla started school in the U.S. at a tender age when her stage of puberty began, leading her to be bullied by school boys, not only for her accent but for her appearance as well, in particular, her “Monkey legs!” (Alvarez 153). They tormented her with phrases like, “Go back to where you came from, you dirty spic!” (Alvarez 153). Although her mother would eventually move her to another school, “they trespassed in her dreams and in her waking moments” (Alvarez 164). Being the eldest child, it was harder for her to learn a new language and fit in, and thus, the bullying had a much deeper effect on her wish to go back home. Her difficulty with learning a new language is most exemplified during an interview with the police about the man she saw. In a new country, where the police held, “no recognition of the difficulty she was having in trying to describe what she had seen with her tiny English vocabulary” (Alvarez 162). Carla’s limited vocabulary and insecurities mark the obstacles of assimilation for children and the feelings of alienation and homesickness. From these obstacles, other obstacles that dealt with their gender roles and independent nature would come, as can be seen through Yolanda in her struggle between her Catholic roots and