Julia Alvarez admits that her critically acclaimed novel How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents is a semi-autobiographical account of her family as they struggled to adjust to American culture. Alvarez was born in New York City on March 27, 1950, but soon relocated to the Dominican Republic, where she lived until she was ten. While there, her father, like the novel's patriarch, was forced to flee with his family after he led a failed attempt to oust Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo. The family returned to the Bronx, in New York City, where her father started a successful medical practice. Like Yolanda, the main character in How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, Alvarez turned to books and writing as an escape from her frustrating acculturation experiences. In an interview with Catherine Wiley in the Bloomsbury Review, Alvarez explains, "I think when I write, I write out of who I am and the questions I need to figure out." How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents is a funny, bittersweet portrayal of her family’s adjustment to their new life in the United States — the disorientation and sense of loss, the shock of prejudice, and the struggle to fit in without giving up too much.

1. Getting started: Reading the book.
Copies of How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents are available at all Tacoma library locations, King's Books, University Books and other Tacoma bookstores. You can attend one of the many book discussions at the library or at selected Starbucks locations in Tacoma, or gather your fiends or co-workers together and hold your own discussion. Then:

* Make notes of thoughts and questions as you read.
* Look for the author's message.
* Identify themes in the book.
* Get to know the characters.
* Notice the structure of the book.
* Make comparisons to other books and authors.
* Think about the book after reviewing the questions and the 'conversation igniters' below.

2. Thinking about the book.
1. Why do you think Alvarez structured the book to move chronologically backwards? How did the structure affect your understanding of the characters?

2. What contrasts did you observe between family life on the island and in the U.S.? Why do you think the parent-child relationships are so different in each culture? Why does the family dynamic become strained as families move from one culture to another?

3. Were you able to clearly visualize the two cultures and move back and forth from chapter to chapter, or were the jumps in time and setting disorienting?

4. Can you compare the experiences of the Garcia girls to other immigrants you may know, or to your own experiences?

5. 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. Do you think this happened to one or more of the Garcia girls?

6. Do you believe the Garcia girls have truly lost their accents? Why? Why not?

7. The themes of culture clash, custom and tradition, and change and transformation together form the novel's major conflict. All the members of the de la Torre-Garcia family experience a clash between the fast-paced American way of life and the more conservative Latin culture of the Dominican Republic. The clash stems from the conflict between their desire to retain the customs and traditions of their homeland and their need to affect some change in order to adapt to their new surroundings in New York City. When they first move to America, each family member feels strong links to the traditions of their homeland. The girls especially have a hard time adapting to life in America, at least at first.

Before they immigrated, their only sense of America came from Papi's presents, which prompted them to think that it must be a wondrous place where all the children played with expensive toys. After they immigrated, however, they discovered a place vastly different. Think about and discuss how Julia Alvarez explores these clashes, these broken dreams in the novel.

3. Beyond the book: conversation igniters
Tacoma Reads Together was created three years ago to explore important community issues through literature. Julia Alvarez's novel focuses on immigration, cultural assimilation, cultural accommodation, the American dream and what it really means to be an American. The section which follows is designed to ignite conversations and engender personal reflection.

Coming To America: Recollections
"My father, who had by now moved from New York to Milwaukee, was barely making a living. He wrote back that he hoped to get a job working on the railway and soon he would have enough money for our tickets… I can remember only the hustle and bustle of those last weeks in Pinsk, the farewells from the family, the embraces and the tears. Going to America then was almost like going to the moon… We were all bound for places about which we knew nothing at all and for a country that was totally strange to us.
Golda Meir, Russia
Arrived in 1906 @ age 8

"My father's dream and prayer always was 'I must get my family to America'… America was paradise, the streets were covered with gold. And when we arrived here, and when we landed from Ellis Island and [went] to Buffalo, it was as if God's great promise had been fulfilled that we would eventually find freedom."
Vartan Hartunian, Turkey
Arrived in 1922 @ age 7

Immigration explosion.
1. In recent years, millions of legal and illegal immigrants have arrived in the United States, representing the largest, most diverse influx in history. Ethnic minorities now make up one-fourth of the U.S. population, and by the year 2010, it will rise to one-third. How do you feel about this immigration explosion? What kind of impact will it have on your life, and the lives of your children?

2. The diversity of immigrants' cultural backgrounds is claimed to be enriching American culture, but then also to be diluting the traditional meaning of being an American. What do you think? Does immigration enrich or diminish us? Why?

The New Colossus
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Emma Lazarus, The Poems of Emma Lazarus, vol.1 (1889),

From: http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/facts/democrac/63.htm
America had always been a magnet to Europeans, at first primarily from the British Isles, and then from the continent. But by the middle of the nineteenth century, improvements in travel, combined with political upheaval and economic difficulties, led to a significant increase in the number of people crossing the Atlantic to seek opportunity in the United States. Between 1820 and 1920, approximately 34 million persons immigrated to the United States, three-fourths of them staying permanently.

For many of these newcomers, their first glimpse of America was the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor. The statue, sculpted by Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, had been conceived of as a gift of friendship from the people of France marking the two nations' commitment to liberty. France provided $400,000 for the 151-foot statue, and a fundraising drive in the United States netted $270,000 for the 89-foot pedestal. Ironically, none of the speeches at the dedication of the monument in October 1886 even mentioned immigrants; President Grover Cleveland spoke about Franco-American friendship and American ideals.

But the Jewish American poet Emma Lazarus saw the statue as a beacon to the world. A poem she wrote to help raise money for the pedestal, and which is carved on that pedestal, captured what the statue came to mean to the millions who migrated to the United States seeking freedom, and who have continued to come unto this day.

As many modern scholars have noted, these words have an air of condescension, but the fact is that many native-born Americans and immigrants at the time did see themselves just as Lazarus portrayed them -- wretched, nameless, "tempest-tossed." For them Europe meant poverty and persecution, and America meant democracy and opportunity. "Other lands," wrote the Polish emigre Henry Sienkiewicz, "grant only asylum; this land recognizes the immigrant as a son and grants him rights." When they were "sickened at last of poverty, bigotry and kings," wrote another immigrant, "there was always America!"

Question: Given the opportunity to write the words on the Statue of Liberty today, what would you want it to say?

American Dreams / American Nightmare
"They imported slaves, although they did not call them slaves: Chinese,
Japanese, Mexicans, Filipinos. They live on rice and beans, the businessmen
said. They wouldn't know what to do with good wages. Why, look how they
live. Why, look what they eat. And if they get funny -- deport them ..."
-- John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

America's Invisible Workforce, ABC News Special Report, 1997
They sew the clothes we wear. They pick the food we eat. They clean our homes, tend our lawns, even watch our children.

“They” are America’s invisible workers—illegal immigrants in U.S. cities and in rural communities. Many work for no pay. Often, they labor under abusive conditions. And too often, their version of the American dream ends in a nightmare.
“We all like cheap vegetables, cheap clothes, paying a housekeeper next to nothing,” said Gregory Schell, a lawyer for the Migrant Farm Workers Justice Project in Belle Glade, Fla. “There’s this rationalization of ‘no harm, no loss.’” Many immigrants come of their own will, and face abuse while working illegally in more traditional sectors of the American economy. They are largely unprotected by U.S. laws governing workers’ safety, health, and wage.

In Iowa meat-packing factories, many workers hacking at meat routinely lose fingers and skin, and get little or no medical attention. In Northern California, field laborers have no access to bathrooms, sanitary water or sleep areas, often digging pits in the ground to create makeshift beds. In Houston, three immigrant workers in plastic bag plants died when they got caught in shredding machines. In a Petaluma, Calif., dress factory, immigrants protested conditions that forced them to work 12-hour days, stitching intricate garments with too-small needles, causing eye strain and carpal tunnel syndrome.
The majority don’t complain. They face the threat, real or implied, that complaints could prompt an employer to call the INS and have them deported. As a result, many Americans are surprised when an investigation reveals a sweatshop, or a group of people enslaved by their employers or an orchard where fruits are plucked by children.

And few of us know just how prevalent these problems are.

The American Dream (Excerpt)
I'm fed up with small-time hustles
I'm too good to waste my talent for greed
I need room to flex my muscles
in an ocean where the big sharks feed
make me Yankee, they're my fam'ly
they're selling what people need

what's that I smell in the air
the American dream
sweet as a new millionaire
the American dream
pre-packed, ready-to-wear
the American dream
fat, like a chocolate eclair
as you suck out the cream

luck by the tail
how can you fail?
and best of all, it's for sale
the American dream
...........
come ev'ryone, come and share
the American dream
name what you want and it's there
the American dream
spend and have money to spare
the American dream
live like you haven't a care
the American dream
what other place can compare
the American dream
come and get more than your share
the American dream
all yours for ten percent down
the American dream!

The American Dream, from Miss Saigon
Lyrics by Alain Boublil, Claude-Michel Schonberh & Richard Maltby, Jr.

Consider the immigrants of the 1900's - 1920's. What drove them from their homes to seek a new homeland in the United Stated? How would you define their 'American Dream"? Was achieving 'the American Dream' possible for them? The sons and daughters of these first-generation Americans are now in their 50's and 60's. Ask them about their grandparents' hopes and fears, as well as those of their parents. Why do people seek to come to the United States now? What are their expectations?

What is an American?
Immigrants seeking to become U.S. citizens must first pass a test which measures their knowledge of United States History and the structure of our government. During this test they are asked 10 - 12 questions from a list of 100 possible questions. Here is a sampling of 12 questions.

1. How many changes or amendments are there to the Constitution?
2. How many times may a congressman be reelected?
3. How many branches are there in our government?
4. Name one amendment that guarantees or addresses voting rights.
5. What are the duties of Congress?
6. Which countries were our principal allies during World War II?
7. Who is the chief justice of the Supreme Court?
8. .What is the supreme law of the United States?
9. Which president was the first commander in chief of the U.S. military?
10. What is the most important right granted to U.S. citizens?
11. Name one purpose of the United Nations.
12. In what year was the Constitution written?

To take a test online, visit the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services web site at http://uscis.gov/graphics/exec/natz/natztest.asp

What does it mean to become an American?
In every immigrant group, each generation finds a balance between the values and practices of its heritage, and the mores of its adopted country. What is lost and what is gained, both personally and culturally, when one sheds part of one's heritage to make way for a new self-identity? Think about your own life, that of your parents and grandparents.

Is it solely the responsibility of newcomers to adjust their behaviors and attitudes to those of the host culture, or should members of a host culture also make adjustments to facilitate effective communication? Americans often quote the saying, 'When in Rome, do as the Romans do,' expecting new immigrants to do all the adjusting. If one group does all the adjusting, the question becomes: At what point do people lose their own sense of self, cultural identity, and moral integrity?

"...to become 'American' one must be a cultural chameleon in many ways, changing colors in order to be understood and fit in. Nevertheless, whether a chameleon is green or red or yellow it is still a chameleon. Being American is not about assimilating. It's about incorporating. As a Nigerian-American, this is something I understand and believe to be good. The meaning of being bicultural is complicated, at times contradictory, but all-encompassing."
--Nnedi Okorafor, freelance journalist and the editor of Afrique Newsmagazine.

"Friends and family members would say, 'You've become so American' or 'You've become too American.' Sometimes these sounded like words of praise and admiration; other times they sounded like accusations. Either way, I never knew how to respond. I never knew what the words, or the emotions behind them, were really implying. The process of becoming felt like a betrayal of what I was and, ultimately, of who I was. After all, in order to move toward something one must move away from something else. Even though I had already left Ghana, I didn't want Ghana to leave me. I didn't want to exist in the in-between....As I matured, I came to understand that the development of my identity in the process of 'becoming American' involved the instinctive act of pushing that plate away, as much as pulling it toward me."
---Nina Barragan, from her introduction to Becoming American: Personal Essays by First Generation Immigrant Women.