How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents

Source of book: Audiobook from the library

From time to time, I have cases that take me out of our local area. To get through the longer drives - particularly when traffic is involved - I like to bring audiobooks with me. Most of my audiobook listening is with the kids on our vacations, so when I get a drive by myself, I pick books that wouldn’t work for younger people. (Although, as you can tell from our listening list, my kids are a bit different in their tastes.) 

I try to read a variety of books, by a variety of authors, and this includes authors outside of the “old, white, and male” group. I try to read books in translation, books by non-American authors, and books with different perspectives. Latin America is large and diverse, of course, so it is a bit overbroad to use the term “Latin American” to describe a single type of literature. That said, I know that I haven’t read as many books from the various romance-language speaking parts of the Americas as I should. I kept running across How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents on lists of essential works by Latinx authors, so I put it on the list. Our library happened to have an audiobook version when I went at the last minute to find something to listen to. 

How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents is the first novel by Julia Alvarez, written in 1991. She had previously published poetry and a few essays (in addition to her teaching job.) Alvarez was born in the United States of Dominican parents, but moved back to the Domincan Republic when she was an infant. Her parents’ first attempt at immigration didn’t work out for them. Ten years later, however, her father got involved in a failed plot to assassinate the dictator, and they had to flee to the United States. She remained here even after the political situation improved, although she spent many summers in the “old country” visiting relatives who remained there. 

This sense of being of two cultures and yet not of either is central to Alvarez’ writing, and is particularly present in this book, which, while not strictly autobiographical, contains a lot from Alvarez’ own experiences. 

The book isn’t so much a novel as a collection of related short stories. There are fifteen stories in all, told from various perspectives, some in first person, others in third person. It would be unfair to say there is no unifying plot, because there is the story of the Garcia girls, but the incidents do not so much form an arc as they do a mosaic of the themes. 

Not only that, but the story is told in reverse order, starting with the “present day” and working back to the childhoods of the sisters. It is divided into three sections, named after the dates - which are also in reverse order. So, the first part is called “Part One: 1989-1972” and tells five stories of the adult Garcia sisters: Carla, Sandra, Yolanda, and Sofia. The second part tells of the adolescence of the girls after they come to the United States. The third section tells of their childhood and how they came to flee their homeland. Within each section, the stories also take place in reverse chronological order. This is a bit disorienting, as Alvarez foreshadows (or is that aftshadows?) the events we hear about later. I’m not entirely sure I liked the format, but I’m probably a bit OCD about it. 

In the story, as in the author’s life, the girls grow up in wealth and privilege - dad is a doctor, but has an inherited estate, servants, and so on. This is why the family is able to escape to the US: he has connections which allow him to get a visa and practice medicine in New York. The childhood incidents are fascinating, but also a bit disturbingly sexual. In the Dominican Republic, an insane sculptor works naked and appears to be getting off on his works - Sandra sees him accidentally. Later, in the US, Carla is harassed by a pedophile. (The scene where she is interviewed by police officers and struggles with her limited English skills is fantastic.) There is an incident of “playing doctor” with a cousin. A certain sexuality pervades the book throughout, in part because, well, life includes sex, and gives plenty of opportunities for significant emotional entanglements. Yolanda has a relationship with a jerk who keeps wanting to fuck her. (His words - his lack of romance is why he never got it.) Sofia takes a trip to Columbia so she can sleep with her boyfriend (no overnights at her parents’ house!), but ends up breaking up with him, meeting this German guy, and (maybe) getting pregnant. When she returns home, she writes him, and he writes back - with naughty details. Dad, snooping around, finds the letters and comes unglued. Sofia flys to Germany, proposes to Otto, and they get married, with a child following...a barely respectable time after. This is actually one of my favorite stories, because Sofia is such a badass when she faces dad down about his violation of her privacy. (At this point, all the children are adults, so it isn’t a “protect the teens” thing. 

Other themes in the book are identity and assimilation. Yolanda is the central character in that sense. She has many nicknames, and it bothers her. She feels fragmented. One of those is simply Yo. Which is the Spanish word for “me.” It is obvious for other reasons too, but this is solid proof that Yolanda is the stand-in for the author. Yolanda too becomes a poet, teacher, and writer. Yolanda seems to struggle with identity the most; indeed, at the end of the story - the beginning of the book - she appears to be tempted to stay in the Dominican Republic permanently yet struggles to express herself either in Spanish or English. 

I could mention pretty much any of the stories as compelling. Alvarez is a good writer, who is particularly excellent in her use of words. The voices of the different characters are recognizably different, as are the voices of the girls as children compared to their voices as adults. A lot of care went into the writing, and the result is delightfully literary. The choice of the backwards narrative and the way things are often assumed but not explained until later means that you really have to pay attention - and remember details so that they make sense later. I am glad that I listened to this mostly in one day. (I had a quarter of it left which I finished in a few days of driving around town.) 

The audiobook we listened to had multiple narrators, one for each of the four girls and one for the third person stories not from the specific perspective of one of them. I confess I don’t recognize any of them (Blanca Camacho, Annie Henk, Annie Kozuch, Noemi de la Puente, Melanie Martinez), and I have no idea which narrator played which character. However, the quality was good, so I give a thumbs up to the narrators. I think the book is actually a good one to listen to, because the Spanglish and accented characters sound so delightful when done right. 

How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents works either as an immigrant story, a coming-of-age story, an exploration of identity, or as just a compelling human story. I am glad I read it, and intend to read more by Alvarez.