Naomi Torres

She was responsible, stood up to Trujillo, and followed her dreams to go to college and obtain a

On her short visit home, how did her former life compare to her new life?

How can immigrating to a new country affect a person's identity and the way they see themself? The novel How The Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, written by Julia Alvarez, takes place in both America and the Dominican Republic. It tells the story of a family with four daughters immigrating to America from the Dominican Republic. The story is told backwards starting with the four girls during their adult years, and as the story goes on it goes back to their childhood years. With the story being told that way, as the story progresses the reader gets to see how the girls grew up to become the sisters at the beginning of the novel. The second youngest sister of the four, Yolanda, has been affected by the immigration to America in multiple ways.

Her life there didn’t seem so great at first. After locking herself up in her room for a month, she found a way to escape her life by doing something she enjoys. She started to go grocery shopping. She volunteered to go for her parents. As it says in the story, “She loved it in the way some people have to drive long country roads because doing it she could think and relax and wander.

She would soon face homesickness, alienation, and prejudice. She missed her cousins, her family's large home, and the respect her family name demanded in the Dominican Republic”. "Julia Alvarez." Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2nd ed., vol. 1, Gale, 2004, pp. 185-187. Gale Virtual Reference Library, Alvarez, her parents, and her sisters squashed themselves and their property into their small apartment in Brooklyn, New York. Alvarez became a committed reader who loved to read, spending all of her free time with books and writing. Alvarez went on to college she earned her undergraduate degree at Middlebury College, and she went on to receive her master's degree in creative writing at Syracuse University. “She became an English professor at

The novel How the García Girls Lost Their Accents focuses on four sisters and their attempts to fit in after moving from the Dominican Republic to the United States. The third sister, Yolanda, returns to the Dominican Republic at the beginning of the story to visit family and finds that instead of fitting in as she always had, she instead felt like an outsider in the land that she loved so much. Throughout the story, Yolanda continually tries to do things the way she always had, even though she experiences pushback from people around her. Yolanda is used to life in America, which is significantly safer than life in the Dominican Republic at the time. Instead, she

Naomi continues to reminisce. In 1941, her mother went to Japan to see her own mother, who was ill and

Rodriguez mentioned in this article that, “Without question, it would have pleased me to hear my teachers address me in Spanish when I entered the classroom. I would have felt much less afraid. I would have trusted them and responded with ease.” ( pg. 3) He felt out of place due to that he felt forced to conform to what was abnormal to him. Once his parents started to add more english into the interactions with Richard, he began to do better in school. He made more friends and became more social due to the fact he became more comfortable with the fact he could now communicate the same language as the other kids around him. Rodrigues mentioned, “ That day I moved very far from the disadvantaged child I had been only days earlier.” (paragraph 33)

She is forced to leave Poland, and then Chicago. Her experiences have strongly influenced her point of view. Her experiences have made her become afraid of change. In the end, Rodzina came out brave and mature. One part of the story that proves that change is hard to get over is when Rodzina is unwilling to move to America.

Linda Williams is from a small village in Veracruz called San Antonio, due to her high performance in school her parents decided to send her away from home to pursue higher studies in nursing. It was the first time she was leaving her home state she was quite scared since her parents expectations were high she has to do well. During the school year

Moving to New York really enabled her to do this because no one knew her, she didn't have a reputation and she could make a new identity. After Negi and Mami had a fight about their lives in Brooklyn Mami said “ I’m not working this hard so that you kids can end up working in factories all your lives. you study, get good grades, and graduate from High school so you can have a profession, not just a job” (Santiago 246) This quote is very powerful because it shows that there are so many opportunities in this country and Negi should take them before it is too late. This is shown in the book very vividly, when Mami is saying this the tone of the passage is very urgent and a little sad, this is the way Santiago describes Brooklyn. This is the point where Negi realizes if she wants to get out of Brooklyn and do something with her life she is going to have to take those opportunities, it is going to be hard but with a lot of work and dedication she can eventually do it she is going to try to prove everyone wrong and get a good job and make a good life for herself. She is not going to be held back by the traditional roles that were forced upon her that women should not get jobs. After their last conversation about achieving a better life and working hard Mami encouraged Negi and said “That’s what you have to do in this country anyone willing to work hard can get ahead.” (Santiago 246) this quote shows a major transition and important transition. Negi went from working hard just to be a good kid and making her mom happy, to working hard so she can make a good life for herself and her

What really stroked me about Marisela was her optimism, perseverance, and her amazing strength to cope and adjust. After the initial ‘cultural shock’, she was determined to overcome the obstacles and improve her situation. Once her English fluency improved, with the help of her sister-in-law, she opened a hair salon and became an independent and a successful business woman. When asked what helped her with the process of acculturation, she said it was God. Religion is very important to Venezuelans, who are mostly Catholics. Like for many immigrants, church has always been a ‘safe heaven’, a place where Marisela met people who experienced similar adjustment problems, found new friends, was offered advice, help, information, and even English classes and financial assistance when she needed it. Through church, she also met Bob, and before she knew it, they were dating and falling in love. After getting married, they moved to North Carolina, and got blessed with two

She wanted to become a nurse because she enjoyed taking care of people. She knew that financially becoming a nurse would help her. After studying to become a nurse, she moved to Saudi Arabia to work in a hospital. She moved there because the salary of a nurse was higher than in the Philippines. After working there for four years, she got a job in New York. New York was going to have a different atmosphere than she was used to. She moved to New York because the pay was even better than in Saudi Arabia. At this point in her life, she was still considered to be in the working class. When she came to New York, she didn’t have her family or a home for herself. She worked in St. Mary’s Hospital and she lived in the dormitory that was in the hospital. She did not have enough money to buy her own home yet. After a few months, some of her Filipino co-workers and herself rented a home and lived there. Most of the Filipino co-workers were in similar situations such as being in America for the first time and leaving family behind in the Philippines. They were all considered on the same level in society because they all didn’t have their own belongings such as a home that was purchased for their family. They didn’t know what would happen next since they were in a foreign land. After a couple of months, my dad came from the Philippines to be with my mom and started settling in

The autobiography When I was Puerto Rican, written by Esmeralda Santiago, tells a story of a poor girl trying to succeed. The settings in this novel have an important influence on Esmeralda. They influence her behavior and change her ideals as an adult. Negi goes through many changes based on the challenges she faces by moving to new locations where society is different. All of these changes allow her to become a stronger person. When she lives in El Mangle, Negi has to face extreme prejudice against her upbringing as a jibara. When she leaves Puerto Rico to move to Brooklyn, she is forced to face an entirely different society. All of these events that took place in Esmeralda’s childhood had a significant impact in shaping her into an adult.

Sometimes it felt as if having two languages in her head at the same time made it harder to quickly translate between the two (Julia Alvarez's "Bilingual Sestina"). This made it even harder to be able to become a member her new home, a place with a different language and different people rather than feeling like just a visitor and an outsider. It is easy to believe that Julia Alvarez used her own sense of confusion between her two different ways of living though her two different languages, english and spanish to navigate through this poem. The difference between both languages that are discussed in the poem easily can represent the differences between Julia’s life in the Dominican Republic compared to her life in New York. Spanish is seen as the safe,welcoming, and original language where english is depicted as the new, scary, and unpredictable language that will take more effort to use. These differences is the foundation of this poem and in turn one of Julia’s major obstacles in coming to America. This confusion and uncertainty was instantly ser in place in her first step into New York was her first step into facing prejudice. Julia had to experience being called “different” or a “Immigrant” because she spoke a different language ("Julia Alvarez