How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents

Julia Alvarez

Feb 2008 · Recorded Books · Narrated by Annie Henk, Noemi De La Puente, Melanie Martinez, Blanca Camacho, and Annie Kozuch

About this audiobook

Hailed by the Los Angeles Times as "simply wonderful" How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents captures the vivid lives of the Garcia sisters, four privileged and rebellious Dominican girls adapting to their new lives in America. In the 1960s, political tension forces the Garcia family away from Santo Domingo and toward the Bronx. The sisters all hit their strides in America, adapting and thriving despite cultural differences, language barriers, and prejudice. But Mami and Papi are more traditional, and they have far more difficulty adjusting to their new country. Making matters worse, the girls-frequently embarrassed by their parents-find ways to rebel against them. A touching coming-of-age tale, this enthralling book perfectly illuminates the intergenerational struggles and multicultural clashes so common to the American immigrant family.

Ratings and reviews

Great

About the author

Julia Alvarez was born in New York City on March 27, 1950 and was raised in the Dominican Republic. Before becoming a full-time writer, she traveled across the country with poetry-in-the-schools programs and then taught at the high school level and the college level. In 1991, she earned tenure at Middlebury College and published her first book How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent, which won the PEN Oakland/Jefferson Miles Award for excellence in 1991. Her other works include In the Time of the Butterflies, The Other Side of El Otro Lado, and Once upon a Quinceañera: Coming of Age in the USA.