How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accents (pages 3-39)

Antojos-The Kiss :*



Summary

This Novel written by a Hispanic poet, Julia Alvarez, is divided into three sections, beginning in 1989 and ending in 1956. She writes the book chronologically, as flashbacks throughout the book. The novel begins with Yolanda, the narrator coming home in five years to Dominica Republic for the first time from school in the U.S. Her whole family are there at her house celebrating her return and they had a cake shaped as the island with the different cities. She is loved by all of her family, and envied as well by her cousins. Overall, Yolanda comes back home with the essence of a permanent stay. Throughout the first chapter she is trying to figure out her family roots and where she belongs, because she has lost some of her Spanish. Because she left Dominica Republic for so long and is now returning for the first time, she has lost much of the language and culture that forms her family’s background and national heritage. Because of the lost of who she is suppose to be, a Dominican, she approaches situations differently than the rest of her family, and there is a gap between their cultural perspective and her own. This gap leads to a certain distance between her and the other members of the family. For instance, she doesn’t know what antojo mean, and her whole family had to explain to her what it meant, and no one was able to, so everyone sees the change in Yolanda, as well as in the physical changes, because she stands out differently. She dresses differently from her cousins, wear her hair differently, holds her postures differently, and even talk differently. She is overall, adjusting her life in this new environment she has just been welcomed to.

The second chapters, I read you the relationship amongst father and daughter is revealed. The four Garcia daughters traditionally gathered every year for their father's birthday. They came alone, leaving behind husbands, boyfriends, and work. Their father Carlos would greet them, they would eat cake, and then he would give them envelopes filled with hundreds of dollars in small bills. The daughters always wondered why he does not simply write checks instead. For her father's seventieth birthday, however, Sofia wanted to break the tradition and have the party at her house, including the husbands and children. But things doesn’t go as planned. Sofia isn’t really considered as a daughter to carlos because of her action. She is very sexual, and comfortable with who she is, which her father disagrees with. The father tries to control her, but she is not the one to be controlled, she’s very free spirited. So in this chapter, you notice that the father is very brutal and not very affectionate. He gets very angry when Sofia kisses him because she gave him a sloppy kiss and bit his ears as well, however Carlos was humiliated, but Sofia did this so her father would know that she was kissing him. There are a very strong disagreement between Sofia and her father. They are not very modest with one another.

Quoate ""



"I'll tell you what i would like." Yoland gives the tree line beyond the old woman's shack a glance. "Are there any guavas around?" (Alvarez 15).





<-- Guavas !! :)




Reaction



Yolanda returns to Dominica Repulic and goes into town, and ends up in Altamira, and she arrives at this cluster house. The old woman asked her if she wanted any refreshments such as coca cola. But when she said she wanted guavas, the old woman was in shock, that such an elegant woman wanted guavas. In my perspective, Yolanda wanted guavas to reconnect to her roots and family, to remember or even have the sense of who she is or who she's suppose to be. She is trying to relate to everyone else around, which is why she goes to the hill where the guavas were, just to have some guavas.