Recently, I’ve been introduced to a new book called “How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents” by Julia Alvarez. Like others have stated, its method of telling a story through reverse chronological order has added unique creativity to the book but at the same time it has put forth confusion for the reader.
The book starts off at the end of the story (since it is in reverse chronological order) with the sister Yolanda being put into focus. A celebration has been thrown for her since she has come back to her place of birth. Yolanda has decided to come back to the Dominican Republic, her place of origin, to regain her cultural ways that she has lost in America. At the celebration, Yolanda has a hard time relating to her relatives there, due to the fact that she has adapted to American life. How she dresses, cuts her hair, and other features of her has become different from those of her relatives.
But a question that arises here is why has Yolanda come back to live in the Dominican Republic?
What I think of this is that Yolanda has come back to her country because she does not appreciate this new life in American that she has grown into. Instead, she has come back to regain her cultural ties and relearn the language she has forgotten. But this is not temporarily. Yolanda wants to stay in the Dominican Republic forever showing how appreciative of her culture she is.
One of the reasons Yolanda might want to come back to her country can be exemplified by the vignette “The Rudy Elmenhurst Story”. She has fallen into a crush she has on a guy that goes to her college named Rudy. But as they get to know each other more, immediately he wants to go straight to having sex. He uses explicit language to refer to sex that she doesn’t appreciate that has turned the meaning of sex into fun instead of her way of wanting it to be a relaxed and loving. Overall, the first part of the book is showing the phase in which Yolanda chooses to migrate back to the Dominican Republic.
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