Julia Alvarez’s first and her bestest
novel, titled, How the Garcia Girls Lost
their Accents, has received wide critical acclaim for its impactful
insights into traditional gender roles, immigration, assimilation, the American
dream, and the struggles of the four girls in trying to ‘fit into’ their new
land of ‘liberty’, America!
Hence, when the four sisters make good
their departure from their home back in the Dominican Republic, they have a
host of factors to cope with, to wrestle with and to battle with!
Although initially poor when they set
foot in the US, the four girls are made to ‘fit into’ the American way of life,
by a host of stereotyped ways and means that bespeak to a typical American
childhood! Hence it is, that they are asked to wear braces in order to
straighten their teeth, and even their accents are polished off in school!
Unfortunately, however, their father Mr.
Garcia has a feeling that this kinda ‘fitting ins’ have drastically misfired on
the family! As a result, he feels there’s no connect between him and his
daughters.
In fact, by helping his four daughters ‘fit
into’ the American system, Mr. Garcia now feels a huge distance between him and
them!
The novelist Julia gives us a glimpse
into one of these modes of trying to ‘fit in’, through the eyes of Sandra, the second of the
four daughters! Here goes excerpts from the novel
–
As she let herself out of her stall, she
heard Mrs. Fanning still active in hers. Quickly, she finished hitching up her
silly lights, then swished her hands under the faucet, beginning to dry them on
her dress, but remembering after an initial swipe, the towels.
She took one from the stack, wiped her
hands and tapped at her face as she had seen Mami do with the powder puff.
Looking at herself in the mirror, she was surprised to find a pretty girl
looking back at her.
It was a girl who could pass as American,
with soft blue eyes and fair skin, looks that were traced back to a great-great
grandmother from Sweden at every family gathering. She lifted her bangs-her
face was delicate like a ballerina's.
It struck her impersonally as if it were
a judgment someone else was delivering, someone American and important, like
Dr. Fanning: she was pretty.
She stops in the bathroom to look at
herself in the mirror and observes that “she was surprised to find a pretty
girl looking back at her. It was a girl who could pass as American, with soft
blue eyes and fair skin.
Moreover, now, as a result of this
constant fixation with trying to ‘fit in’, Sandra develops a lot of
psychological complexes on her! Her dieting leads her to a near total nervous
collapse, resulting in anorexia!
Something on a similar note befalls the
other sisters too! Finally, at the end of it all, the four girls are of the
firm opinion that, the more they try to ‘fit in’, the less they feel liberated!
The more they try to ‘feel American’, the more they get stifled with their own free
liberated selves!
Through Sandra’s precarious predicament
in trying to 'fit in,' then, the author seems to convey the idea that the four girls
had not only lost their voice, their cultural ethos, and their language, but
also their identity in the process!
And through this valuable insight the
novelist suggests, albeit on a veiled vein, that, true liberation is when one
speaks their own voice, stands for their cultural ethos, converses proudly in
their accent, and lifts aloft their language!
To
be continued…
image: amazondotcom
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