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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
An eight page paper looking at this multicultural novel in terms of its treatment of the issues of cultural identity and assimilation. The paper asserts that when immigrants try too hard to melt into one homogenous nation, they lose those distinctive characteristics which allow them to maintain their emotional and spiritual health. Bibliography lists two sources.
Page Count:
8 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_KBgarcia.doc
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
can barely comprehend. This becomes all the more evident when we uproot ourselves from whatever place we call home and set off for somewhere else. This is the situation confronting
the four Garcia sisters in Julia Alvarez marvelous first novel, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent. The book is not really about the fine points of pronunciation,
or even about language at all. It is about assimilation to a new culture. Alvarez novel tells the story of the Garcia family, wealthy aristocrats in Santo Domingo, who move
to the United States, expecting to be accepted as the proud descendants of conquistadors that they are. Moreover, they expect that their move will not really change them, except geographically.
Of course, it changes them all a great deal. Over the course of the novel the protagonist, Yolanda, painstakingly deconstructs the way her family has gradually become American, at the
expense of their unique Dominicanisms and sometimes at the expense of their essential selves. Most immigrants come to this country intending to both hold on to their heritage and
put down roots; this is the reason for the plethora of "Little Italies" and "Chinatowns" dotting urban districts across the country. Their children, on the other hand, generally try their
level best to blend as quickly as possible into the melting pot of American culture. When this happens, it is very difficult for the parents to understand what has happened,
because their time-honored expectations for their children seem to be slipping out of their control. We see this in the chapter entitled "Daughter of Invention," when Yolanda writes a
commencement speech which shocks her father in its obvious self-actualization; this speech would have been impossible coming out of a nice girl in Santo Domingo. Furious, he tears up her
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