How The Garcia Lost Their Accent By Julia Alvarez Analysis

Have you ever been judged on how you look or act? How you were raised or where you were born? In the book How the Garcia Lost Their Accents, Julia Alvarez writes the story of four siblings Carla, Sandra, Yolanda, and Sofia who throughout their life have a hard time with immigrating to the US after their father got into trouble with their dictator in the Dominican Republic. Throughout the book, they struggle with bullying a school, peer pressure from men, and relationship issues with every man they come in contact with. In her text, Alvarez effectively uses imagery to reinforce stereotypes, therefore, demonstrating to the reader the Garcia girl’s difficulties immigrating to the United States.
Yolanda is the third child out of four siblings …show more content…
When they move to the United States, Carla is bullied by her peers and also sees her dad kiss the wife of the doctor that helped them get into the United States. She was subjected to racism by her classmates due to her being immigrated. In the chapter Trespass, boys from her school treated her particularly awful and ‘pelted Carla with stones’ & ‘pulled her blouse out of her skirt while another yanked down her socks.’ They then shouted obscenities at her like “Go back to where you came from, you dirty spic!” “No titties,” “Monkey legs!” Carla then cried out and begged them to stop but they just mimicked her. (150) Carla felt highly targeted due to her being an immigrant and was humiliated in her school as a way to make her feel terrible about herself. This makes her uncomfortable with going to the school she does and she then begs her parents to switch her from that school. In the article, “A Search for Identity in Julia Alvarez's: How the García Girls Lost Their Accents”, the author William Luis talks about how the Garcia sisters were treated in the new American culture. Luis states in the article that,
“In the United States, the Garcia sisters continued to receive the best education money could buy. But the events had changed; they now experienced life in the United States from a different point of view, …show more content…
Sophia is the baby of the family who doesn’t remember her life in the Dominican Republic. She’s more of child that explores too much for her own good. Sophia is the one who does drugs first and wears makeup before all the girls. In the story A Regular Revolution, she goes down to meet her cousin Manuel and falls in love with him. Sofia felt like meeting Manuel would make her feel complete. Soon after, Sofia realizes that he was not the person she thought he was to be, but instead he was extremely critical of everything she did and controlling over her. He criticized her American ways and told her that reading books was stupid and that she shouldn’t again. He also had exceedingly sexist comments to direct to Sofia, her sisters, and women in general. She goes and tells her sister that Manuel asked her to have sex with him. Manuel pressures her into having sex with him but she said the only way she would is if he used a condom but he refused. “…Manuel won’t wear a rubber. “He thinks it might cause impotence,”… “Jesus, Fifi!” Sandi sighs. “Tell him that not using one most surely can cause pregnancy.”… “We’ll tell on you, we will!” that she won’t have sex with Manuel unless she gets some contraception first.” (121) In the Perkins Literary Criticism article, Perkins states that “Sofia falls in love with a cousin…begins to fall in a traditional relationship with him…the sisters often seem unable to maintain successful relationships, due,