Julia Alvarez presents the theme of familial relationships throughout the novel, How the García Girls Lost Their Accents. One major aspect of the familial relationships is the expectations that are put on Carla, Sandra, Yolanda, and Sofía as they are thrown into a new world and become apart of this new lifestyle, while also not losing their roots. Mamí repeatedly illustrates the pressures that she is putting on the girls. Laura is more focused on making sure everything looks right, rather than paying attention to what is really going on. She desperately wanted her family to become apart of the great American society, so she would spend her time “inventing gadgets to make life easier for the American Moms,” (138) rather than helping her daughters
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Papí was very strict and did not try to accrue any American values whatsoever; he was stuck with is old country mindset. This was good because it gave the girls some rules to follow, but many of his rules and moral codes were over the top and demeaning. Carlos wanted to defend his daughters’ honor, even though he went above and beyond many times. Because Carlos was “heavy-duty Old World, the four daughters acted pretty wild” (47) in order to differentiate themselves from each other and allow their real characters to show through. Carla, Sandra, Yolanda, and Sofía felt as if they needed to act out so that they could get some of their father’s attention. They were girls so by Dominican standards, males should have dominated them. This reasoning is also why “it was a big deal that Sofía had a son. He was the first make born into the family in two generations.”(26) Papí had a granddaughter too, but this boy was the most precious gift in the grandfather’s eyes. It seemed that Carlos expected the girls to act as lesser beings because they were females, and he was perfectly content with their lives being this way. His lack of emotion really shows through when Carla discovers that she has a mental illness and Papí’s only reaction was “a shrug of his shoulders across his lips, as he murmured ‘A small breakdown.’”’ (51) A reaction …show more content…
What really matters though, is that both put in the effort and did as much as they could to help their daughters. Unfortunately, this also caused unwanted pressures to be placed on the girls, but in the end the girls had each other to help raise them. The fact that each one of the sisters could so greatly depend on the others is really all you could ask for in a family. The four girls stuck together because they had to figure out this new country with little to no help from their parents. When Sofía was caught with weed, it was the solidarity, commitment, and “habit [of sharing] the good and the bad that came [their] way” (115) of the girls’ relationship that in the end allowed Sofía to get off the hook. Whenever one of the girls is in trouble, the rest know that they need to be there in order to help this sister get through their rough patch. When Yolanda was in the hospital for her mental illness, all of sisters came to catch up on how she was doing, even though it was “the first time the family gathered together in a year.” (60) The girls somehow knew when they are needed to interfere with the other’s lives. It is these familial relationships, like the one that the sisters show, that are what really matters throughout
Papí was very strict and did not try to accrue any American values whatsoever; he was stuck with is old country mindset. This was good because it gave the girls some rules to follow, but many of his rules and moral codes were over the top and demeaning. Carlos wanted to defend his daughters’ honor, even though he went above and beyond many times. Because Carlos was “heavy-duty Old World, the four daughters acted pretty wild” (47) in order to differentiate themselves from each other and allow their real characters to show through. Carla, Sandra, Yolanda, and Sofía felt as if they needed to act out so that they could get some of their father’s attention. They were girls so by Dominican standards, males should have dominated them. This reasoning is also why “it was a big deal that Sofía had a son. He was the first make born into the family in two generations.”(26) Papí had a granddaughter too, but this boy was the most precious gift in the grandfather’s eyes. It seemed that Carlos expected the girls to act as lesser beings because they were females, and he was perfectly content with their lives being this way. His lack of emotion really shows through when Carla discovers that she has a mental illness and Papí’s only reaction was “a shrug of his shoulders across his lips, as he murmured ‘A small breakdown.’”’ (51) A reaction …show more content…
What really matters though, is that both put in the effort and did as much as they could to help their daughters. Unfortunately, this also caused unwanted pressures to be placed on the girls, but in the end the girls had each other to help raise them. The fact that each one of the sisters could so greatly depend on the others is really all you could ask for in a family. The four girls stuck together because they had to figure out this new country with little to no help from their parents. When Sofía was caught with weed, it was the solidarity, commitment, and “habit [of sharing] the good and the bad that came [their] way” (115) of the girls’ relationship that in the end allowed Sofía to get off the hook. Whenever one of the girls is in trouble, the rest know that they need to be there in order to help this sister get through their rough patch. When Yolanda was in the hospital for her mental illness, all of sisters came to catch up on how she was doing, even though it was “the first time the family gathered together in a year.” (60) The girls somehow knew when they are needed to interfere with the other’s lives. It is these familial relationships, like the one that the sisters show, that are what really matters throughout