How The Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents

In the book, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, by Julia Alvarez, we learn about how four girls grow up: moving from the Dominican Republic to the United States. The main character is one of the sisters, Yolanda, and her obstacles and memories are portrayed through each chapter. Her obstacle throughout her life includes: trying to be an individual at her youth, to trying to fit in with the Americans in her teens, until finally as an adult she tries to find her balance: by fitting in with everyone else but being herself (an individual) at the same time.

As a child, Yolanda tried to be an individual apart from her three sisters. “Each of the four girls had the same party dress, school clothes, underwear, toothbrush, bedspread, nightgown, plastic cup, towel, brush and comb set as the other three...” (p. 41). Yolanda and her sisters didn’t like this method but Yolanda was the only one that rebelled against it. She wanted to express herself compared to having everything the same as her sisters. “My mother disapproved. It was high time I got over my rebelling stage and started acting like a young lady senorita.” (p. 228). Yolanda’s grandmother bought an American

Each one of the four girls ended up with an individual life and grew up to be four different people. Even though, Yoyo feels that the color-coding and the way her mother brought her up effected the rest of her life predominately, she found her own life and ended up being happy with herself and her surroundings. While she was a child, she struggled to find her individuality, while when she moved to the states she tried to fit in with everyone else. Now, she fits in with everyone else enough to be excepted and still shows her own sense of individuality through what she wears, how she speaks, and what she does in her daily life.

As an adult, Yolanda finally reached a happy balance between fitting in with the people she wanted to, while being herself and feeling comfortable. “ The eldest, a child psychologist, admonished the mother in an autobiographical paper, ‘I Was There Too,’ by saying that the color system had weakened the four girls’ identity differentiation abilities and made them forever unclear about personality boundaries.” (p. 41). Yoyo did feel scarred from not being able to express herself as a child but eventually accepted it. Now, being older, she had found herself and balanced her individuality with the society. After a heart breaking split-up between her and her husband, her parents sent her to a hospital where she would get counseling. Her parents thought she was “carried away with the sound of her voice.”

Some topics in this essay:
Dominican Republic, Republic United, York City, America Americans, Day Yoyo, Sister Zoe, York Catholic, United Yoyo, Julia Alvarez, Meghan Ross, trying fit, balance fitting, dominican republic, americans help, girls lost, lost accents, girls lost accents, garcia girls lost, garcia girls,