How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents OUT OF PRINT : See 156512975X by Julia Alvarez
	ISBN-10:   0452268060 ISBN-13:   9780452268067 Publisher:   Penguin Group (USA) Inc Series:   Contemporary Fiction Ser. Category:   Young Adults Pub. Date:   June 1992 Pages:   304 Format:   Paperback
Subjects
GARCIA FAMILY (FICTITIOUS CHARACTERS)_FICTION DOMINICAN AMERICANS_FICTION FICTION_GENERAL
Description/Notes
Uprooted from their family home in the Dominican Republic, the four Garcia sisters-Carla, Sandra, Yolanda, and Sofia-arrive in New York City in 1960 to find a life far different from the genteel existence of maids, manicures, and extended family they left behind. What they have lost-and what they find-is revealed in the fifteen interconnected stories that make up this exquisite novel from one of the premiere novelists of our time. When their father's part in a plot against a cruel dictator forces them to flee the Dominican Republic, the Garcia sisters-Carla, Sandra, Yolanda, and Sofia-come to America. But 1960s New York City is vastly different from the genteel, if troubling, existence they left behind, a world marked by maids, manicures, a loving family, and disappearances, secret police raids, growing political unrest. What the sisters have lost-and what they find-is revealed in this exquisite novel from one of the premier novelists of our time. In America, the Garcia girls try to assimilate into the mainstream by ironing their hair, forgetting their Spanish, and meeting boys unchaperoned. Through it all, they remain caught between the old world and the new. With zestful humor and rare insight, Julia Alvarez evokes the uncertainties and joys of belonging to two distinct cultures in a buoyant novel full of irrepressible spirit. Julia Alvarez was raised in the Dominican Republic and emigrated to the United States in 1960. She is the author of the critically acclaimed novels Yo!, In the Time of the Butterflies (a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist), and In the Name of Salome, a national bestseller. She is also the author of Something to Declare, a book of essays, and two poetry collections, The Other Side/El Otro Lado and Homecoming. All are available in Plume editions. Ms. Alvarez lives with her husband in Middlebury, Vermont. Visit the author's Web site at www.alvarezjulia.com. It's a long way from Santo Domingo to the Bronx, but if anyone can go the distance, it's the Garcia girls. Four lively latinas plunged from a pampered life of privilege on an island compound into the big-city chaos of New York, they rebel against Mami and Papi's old-world discipline and embrace all that America has to offer.