Garcia Girls Part Two

Part two of How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents was somewhat boring to me. The first part was interesting although confusing. I finally understood how the book works and the second part is boring me. The second part doesn’t have as much drama as the first part. The first part was throwing all these events that happened quickly and it was really intense; I hope the third part isn’t as boring as the second part.

            After discussing in my group about this story, I realized how the mother’s role in this book affects the girls. When they moved to America, the mother was trying to break free of the cage that limits her life. In the Dominican Republic, the mother was forced to be only a housewife and a mother. She was only a wife and wasn’t acknowledged for other things. Only the men were dominant back in the Island. The daughters think that the mother failed as a mom but by the way I see it, I think the mother is trying to make their daughters proud by trying to be someone who’s not just a mother. She wants to be somebody in America due to her caged life but she tried at the wrong time. She picked the wrong time to be someone else because that’s when the daughters need support from a mother. The role of mother changes depending on the situation and I think that the daughters just want encouraging words from their mother but couldn’t.

            This also relates to how the females of the house were able to embrace American Cultures but the father was the only one who couldn’t. The father is really traditional and he likes the system where the males were dominant figure of the house and the females must obey him. Whereas, the women of the house, like the American Culture because they have power and can use the excuse of culture to rebel against the dominant male. They are able to be independent and since the American Culture allows women to have more freedom, the girls embraced the culture more easily than the father. Even the mother was able to adapt to the American life because she got a sense of identity in America.

How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents

The weakness of In How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, by Julia Alvarez, was the different events regarding the daughter and the time of the book.

            The book was reverse chronologically meaning that it goes from the future to the past. This kind of time is really confusing because I have to keep reminding myself that a certain event is before and not after the last chapter. Time was harder to keep track of in this book and there were so many times that I had to reread something and remind myself that the book is from the future to the past. Events were mixed up with one another and rereading was common for me in this book than any other book.

            Many of the events were confusing as well because of all the information about the daughters and their husband. The story would talk about one daughter and their husband and later talk about another daughter. This is so confusing because it’s hard to remember specific details. The detail about the husband’s job was hard to remember too. I would get myself mixed up with which daughter is the oldest and which one is the youngest. It was hard for me to remember some of their names because the first part of the book is mostly about the third oldest and the youngest daughter.

            So far, the story is a little interesting but there’s a bit too much information on certain stuff. When I first found out that we were going to read this book, I immediately gave this book a bad impression because the colors were dull, the title wasn’t really interesting, and I didn’t vote for this book.  I thought that this book would make me fall asleep and I dreaded reading this book. While reading the first three vignettes, my impression changed. I like the book a little because it was interesting. The book was very detail written, although I wanted some parts to not have as many details as they have. Even though the book was confusing, I always have this feeling that I want to continue to finish the vignette.