148 Alvarez, Julia
pregnant with the offspring of such an unworthy
suitor. Blanca’s husband, the count, oppresses the
servants in his employ, forcing them to pose in lewd
sexual acts for his photography.
Of all the characters, only Clara avoids oppres-
sion, taking refuge in her magic and her aloofness.
When her magical powers become the object of
shame, she chooses not to speak. She endures her
husband’s tirades and then responds with a ridicu-
lous non sequitur that demonstrates her unflappable
nature. When her husband hits her, she refuses to
speak to him, an act that isolates her from his abuse.
Finally, her labyrinth of a home and her ability to
become part of the spirit world at will separates her
from the oppressive reality surrounding her. She,
unlike any other character in Allende’s work, avoids
the political, sexual, religious, and economic domi-
nance faced by the other characters by living in her
own world—the house of the spirits.
Anne Massey
ALVAREZ, JULIA How the García Girls
Lost Their Accents (1991)
Julia Alvarez (b. 1950) is best known for her first
novel, How the García Girls Lost their Accents, which
received the PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Liter-
ary Award. Told chronologically backwards, the 15
stories tell of how the four García sisters leave their
home in the Dominican Republic to be challenged
in the United States through language, cultural dif-
ference, education, race, ethnicity, and gender.
Alvarez’s novel introduces the reader to the
quandary that faces the four García girls: how to
“fit in” in American society while retaining a sense
of their identity as Dominican women. The narra-
tor changes in the 15 stories, thus allowing all four
women to render their versions of what has hap-
pened between the time they lived in the Dominican
Republic and their maturation into women in New
York. The women write of their Latino family, their
American friends and significant others, and their
own identities as something in between. The chron-
ological order reflects going back to their “roots” on
the island in order to understand the people they
have become. In the first story, one of the older
sisters returns to the island with the intention of
remaining there.
How the García Girls Lost Their Accents tells a
funny but difficult story that examines the difficult
issue of identity in a foreign land. Because this pro-
cess is never a solitary one, it is fitting that the four
sisters tell their stories together rather than as lone
individuals.
Nancy CardonatHe american dream in How the García
Girls Lost Their Accents
Most people believe that attainment of the Ameri-
can dream involves the acquisition of material
objects. Julia Alvarez’s novel questions this notion,
having her immigrant García family attain the
American dream in terms of objects, but the dream
eludes the family in terms of their ability to see
themselves as wholly American.
The García family begins their story in the
Dominican Republic where they live a fairly privi-
leged life. Mr. García owns a factory, and the fami-
lies live behind compound walls in order to protect
them from the disadvantaged. They have servants
to cater to their every need, and some of the men in
the family maintain two families. Even though the
family lives with great privilege, they do so under
Rafael Trujillo, the Dominican Republic’s ruthless
dictator who ruled the island for more than 30 years.
To escape the country’s dangerous political situa-
tion, Mr. García participates in the underground
resistance movement and is given an opportunity to
leave the island with his family via a CIA contact
known as “Uncle Vic.”
When they arrive in the United States, the fam-
ily is poor, and they struggle to make ends meet
despite the fact that Mr. García has been a success-
ful businessman and has training as a doctor. The
four daughters are given a stereotypical American
childhood, wearing braces to “straighten their teeth”
and “smooth[ing] the accent out of their English in
expensive schools.” If anything, Mr. García believes
that his ability to provide this kind of childhood to
his daughters has actually distanced them from him.
One daughter elopes with a German man, two of
them get divorces, while the last one suffers a ner-
vous breakdown. The attainment of the American