Story Map #1[Revised] - Score: 92

How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, By Julia Alvarez

Characters & Characterization: The Protagonist was shared equally between the four Garcia girls because the story was about the changes they went thought when they immigrated to the United States. Carla is the oldest Garcia sister. Laura the Garcia sister's mother would always dress her in the color yellow. When she grew up she became a child Psychologist. Carla Had problems with relationships. She got married twice but both ended in a divorce. The first husband broke up with her. The second had a drug problem. Sandra is the second oldest Garcia sister. Laura the Garcia sister's mother would always dress her in the color blue. The nickname that was given was Sandi. Sandra is different from the Garcia girls because she got blue eyes and peach ice cream skin. Sandra was born this way because their grandfather married a Swedish Girl. When Sandra became an adult she had mental breakdowns. Yolanda is the third oldest Garcia sister. Laura the Garcia sister's mother would always dress her in pastel pink. The nickname that was given to her was Yoyo. She was a tomboy throughout her childhood. When she became an adult she became a school teacher. Sofia is the oldest Garcia sister. Laura the Garcia sister's mother would always dress her in the color white. The nickname that was given to her was Fifi. When she got older she started to like the color pink which was Yolanda was always dressed in. Sofia was the troublemaker in the family. She really didn't listen to Carlos(father) and Laura. The Antagonist was Trujillo's secret police. Trujillo was the Dominican Dictator who lived next door to the De La Torre Compound. Carlos was part of many political activities that were against Trujillo. Trujillo didn't like this so he sent his secret police to threaten Carlos and his fellow people.

Setting: Setting Time: Between 1956- 1989 Setting Place: Dominican Republic and New York Dominican Republic: The Garcia Family was from the Dominican Republic. Carlos and Laura would sent the girls back to the Dominican Republic so they can stay in contact with their extended family. New York: The Garcia family fleet to New York to get away from the Dominican Dictator Trujillo and his secret police.

Vocabulary:
Adolescent: growing to manhood or womanhood; youthful.
Credentials: anything that provides the basis for confidence, belief, credit, etc.
Vivacious: Full of animation and spirit; lively
Syringe: a small device consisting of a glass, metal, or hard rubber tube, narrowed at its outlet, and fitted with either a piston or a rubber bulb for drawing in a quantity of fluid or for ejecting fluid in a stream, for cleaning wounds, injecting fluids into the body, etc.
Ejaculating: to utter suddenly and briefly; exclaim.

Plot: The Garcia family is living in the Dominican Republic. The Garcia girls are having a great childhood there in the Dominican Republic. Yolanda remembers playing with her cousin Mudin. Sandra wanted to be an artist. The Garcia girls got gifts from their parents and grandmother from the United States. Then Carlos stated to have problems with Trujillo's leadership. Many didn't want Trujillo to be a leader. Carlos got involved with Political activities. Trujillo didn't like this so he send his secret police. Carlos then started to have problems with them so his family decided to go to the United States. The family moved to New York. The Garcia girls stated to have problems with people in the United States. They were having problems because of Immigration. The white people in the United States don't want immigrates to come. They want them to leave. The Garcia girls are learning to deal with it as they got older.

2 Quotes: "Good bulls sire cows" Carlos the Garcia girl's father would always say this. He would always say this because he didn't have any boys. He only had four girls and his wife. He lived with only girls and was the only man in his family. He meant by this quote was that good fathers parent girls. He tried to do the best he can do to father theses four beautiful girls.
“You have disgraced the family name.”
Carlos the Garcia girls ‘s father would always say this to his daughter Sofia when she was with a man who she was not supposed to be. She was supposed to be with her sisters. Sofia was with her boyfriend in a motel room. Sofia’s boyfriend pressured her to have sex with him. Carlos got mad at her and said that to her. Carlos didn’t want her to disgrace the family name because she can get pregnant and it will cause a big problem.

Conflicts:
The conflict the Garcia girls faced was both internal and external. The conflicts were internal and external because they faced many problems in the United States. The people in the New York didn’t want them living there. The girls didn’t know how to face the facts that they were hated because they were immigrants not because of the person they are. They really struggled when the girls first go to New York. They really wanted to go back home. They missed being back in the Dominican Republic with their family. The girls were having problems with their relationships. There relationships didn’t go the right way. Sometimes it rally messed them up. Some ended in divorces. They didn’t know what to do and it hurt them in side. They were young women that didn’t really know how to handle this type of situations they faced in there lives. They were young women that went to the Dominican Republic, New York, and they went to boarding school. So there parents were not around them a lot.

Themes:
Language: Language was a theme because the Garcia girls had trouble with the language of Spanish and English. When they were in the Dominican Republic they were young and they always speak in Spanish. Then when they moved to United States they stated to speak in English. The Garcia girls struggled with English. When they went back to see their extended family in the Dominican Republic they struggled to understand Spanish. Whenever the Garcia girls where in the United States or in the Dominican Republic they struggled with the language of English and Spanish.
Extended Family: Extended Family was a theme because when the Garcia family moved out of the Dominican Republic to New York. The girls missed the Dominican Republic so Carlos and Laura would send the girls to their extended family of the summer. Carlos and Laura send their daughter Sofia to the Dominican Republic to punish her because of the marijuana she had in her bedroom. Their parents send the girls with their extended family in the Dominican Republic so the girls won’t forget where they came from and the culture their parents experienced.

Literary Elements:
Imagery: the formation of mental images, figures, or likenesses of things, or of such images collectively.
On page 13 Yolanda is driving up the hill to go find guavas because she had a craving for guavas. As she went up the hill in her car she started to see wooden strands she keep looking of the guavas that she hasn’t seen in years. She sees the fruit piled high on the wooden stand. She then starts to describe the guavas. She says that there “pinkish- yellow mangoes, and tamarind pods oozing their rich sap, and small chew fruits on a rope to keep them from brushing each other.”
Foreshadowing: To present an indication or a suggestion of beforehand; presage.
On page 28 the narrator was talking about Sofia. They were taking about who she was and what kind of person she was. Then the narrator indicated that Sofia “was with no-stop boyfriends.” Which I found out it was true because in the book she had a lot of trouble with boys when she was young. One account was when she meet her husband for the first time. She left home and went on vacation with her boyfriend to Colombia. They broke up. Then she meets a German man in a few days and they fell in love.
Suspense: a state or condition of mental uncertainty or excitement, as in awaiting a decision or outcome, usually accompanied by a degree of apprehension or anxiety.
On Page 87 and 88 Yolanda started to talk about a young man named Rudy Elmenhurst the third and why she didn’t sleep with him it was a mystery she said. I want to know what she meant by this. I found out that Rudy was a guy who Yolanda went out with for little while. They broke up because all Rudy wanted to do was sleep with Yolanda. Rudy admitted he wanted to sleep with Yolanda when they saw each other a few year later.

Annotated Bibliography:
Alvarez, Julia, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents. Penguin Books, 1991
Julia Alvarez’s book How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents is about the Garcia family who lived in the Dominican Republic. When their father Carlos got involved with people that were against the Dominican dictator Trujillo the Garcia Family had to flee out of the Dominican Republic. The Garcia family had to flee to the United States. New York was very different from he Dominican Republic. The family struggled in different ways. The Garcia girls try not to forget where they came from so their parents would send them to the Dominican Republic for summer vacation. Julia Alvarez shows the uncertainties and joy of belonging to two different cultures.