How The Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents Chapter Summary

How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez is a novel that follows four sisters -- Carla, Sandra, Yolanda, and Sofia -- through various points in their lives. Throughout the story each Garcia sister narrates their lives as United States immigrants from the Dominican Republic. Forced to flee from their homeland due to their father’s actions against the dictator of the Dominican Republic, the Garcia girls tell their stories of assimilation into the United States culture. With parents trying to keep to the practices of their old culture despite their new lives in a different country, the Garcia girls struggle with balancing the Dominican culture of their parents and the American culture they have been thrust into. Dealing with themes of family, culture, and the idea of home, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents is a moving story about a group of sister finding their way through life while being a part of two different cultures. Alvarez sections this book into three parts: Part I 1989-1972, Part II 1970-1960, and Part III 1960-1956. We start part I with stories that have taken place the most recently, with the three sisters having settled down into American life. The very first chapter, though taking place after the sister had grown up in America, is set in the Dominican …show more content…
In the beginning of the final chapter of Part I, entitled “The Rudy Elmenhurst Story,” the third sister Yolanda states that growing up, the sisters would compete for the title of ‘wildest daughter’. In this chapter, Yolanda, who’s point of view the story is in, tells us how for a while in high school she was considered the wildest daughter. She tells us how she had male suitors all through prep school, and this gained her the title for a