How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents

Alvarez, Julia

3.63

30,079 ratings by Goodreads

9781419377952: How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents

ISBN 10: 1419377957 ISBN 13: 9781419377952

Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc., 2006

Hailed by the Los Angeles Times as "simply wonderful" How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents captures the vivid lives of the Garcia sisters, four privileged and rebellious Dominican girls adapting to their new lives in America. In the 1960s, political tension forces the Garcia family away from Santo Domingo and toward the Bronx. The sisters all hit their strides in America, adapting and thriving despite cultural differences, language barriers, and prejudice. But Mami and Papi are more traditional, and they have far more difficulty adjusting to their new country. Making matters worse, the girls-frequently embarrassed by their parents-find ways to rebel against them. A touching coming-of-age tale, this enthralling book perfectly illuminates the intergenerational struggles and multicultural clashes so common to the American immigrant family.

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About the Author:

Julia Alvarez left the Dominican Republic for the United States in 1960 at the age of ten. A novelist, poet, and essayist, she is the author of nineteen books, including How the Garc�a Girls Lost Their Accents,In the Time of the Butterflies—a National Endowment for the Arts Big Read Selection—Yo!, Something to Declare, In the Name of Salome, Saving theWorld, A Wedding in Haiti, and The Woman I Kept to Myself. Her work has garnered wide recognition, including the 2013 National Medal of Arts, a Latina Leader Award in Literature in 2007 from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, the 2002 Hispanic Heritage Award in Literature, the 2000 Woman of the Year by Latina magazine, and inclusion in the New York Public Library’s 1996 program “The Hand of the Poet: Original Manuscripts by 100 Masters, from John Donne to Julia Alvarez.” A writer-in-residence at Middlebury College, Alvarez and her husband, Bill Eichner, established Alta Gracia, an organic coffee farm–literacy arts center, in her homeland, the Dominican Republic.

From AudioFile:

Alvarez's poetic prose, with its rich, sensual detail, is brought perfectly to life by five readers. With expressive voices and accents that move adeptly between English and Spanish, they narrate the interwoven stories of four daughters of a wealthy family forced to leave the Dominican Republic and settle in the United States. Adjustment to immigrant life and its long-term consequences is explored with psychological astuteness from the point of view of each sister. Oddly, the narrators' voices are similar, making it difficult to distinguish among them, although this doesn't detract from the pleasures of listening. The rich detail, emotional depth, and fine narration make this a book that invites multiple listenings. E.S. � AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine-- Copyright � AudioFile, Portland, Maine

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