Julia Alvarez (1951- )

1
Julia Alvarez (1951- )

• Background and Biography

2
Early Life in Dominican Republic

• Born March 27, 1951
• Spent the first ten years of her life in the
  country of her birth (DR)
• Grew up in an affluent family, surrounded by
  maids
• Experienced security and comfort of living in an
  extended family, including grandparents, aunts,
  uncles and cousins

3
Early Life in Dominican Republic

• Alvarez says that she did only very little
  reading in those early years, even hated books,
  school, anything that had to do with work.
• However, Dominican culture is steeped in oral
  traditions, putting a high value on a well told
  story and a skilled story-teller
• As a young child, she became proficient at
  reciting poetry and was often asked to entertain
  guests

4
Politics and Family Involvement

• Politically, however, the life of her family was
  all but blissful
• DR was ruled by the dictator Rafael Leonidas
  Trujillo
• Julias father (a medical doctor) became involved
  in a failed plot to overthrow the dictator
• Soon after the plot was discovered, he was
  implicated
• Through the intervention of some American
  co-conspirators, her father was offered a
  fellowship to specialize in heart surgery in the
  US
• Surprisingly, Trujillos government granted her
  father and his family permission to leave the DR

5
Emigration/Immigration

• Julia was thus up-rooted very suddenly from her
  accustomed environment
• Quote I lost almost everything a homeland, a
  language, family connections, a way of
  understanding, a warmth.
• Like many immigrants, the Alvarez family
  experienced considerable difficulties adjusting
  to customs and language of the US

6
Immigration and Language

• Especially, speaking a language other than
  English was considered Un-American
• (note to class and still is by many Americans
  supporting an English-only or English as
  official language movement.we will talk about
  language as both a personal and political issue
  when we discuss the book)
• Alvarez quickly learned English and thus lost
  much of her mother tongue, Spanish
• Today, she speaks Spanish only with an American
  accent and would never consider writing
  creatively in her native language
• Quote I say what happened to me is that we left
  the Dominican Republic and I landed not in the
  U.S., but in English.
• Though losing her accent was difficult for her,
  she states that the English languagemore than
  the US as a countrybecame her homeland

7
Difficulties of Assimilation

• Taunted on the playground she isolated herself
  from her schoolmates, also leading her to
  discover books
• She decided early on to become a writer
• She learned English much quicker than her parents
  and became independent of the highly restrictive
  traditions of her home country
• Family settled in Queens, New York, but did not
  consider the area safe her parents also did not
  consider the public or Catholic schools adequate
  and sent Julia, at age 13, to a boarding school
• Since then, she never permanently lived with her
  immediate family again during the summers, she
  and her sisters were sent to the DR with the
  express purpose to stay in touch with their
  culture and language
• She became interested in the differences between
  the two cultures in the DR, she especially
  observed the gap in living conditions between
  rich and poor, and double standards between men
  and women

8
Education and Jobs

• Graduated high school in 1967
• Attended Connecticut College for two years,
  winning a poetry prize there
• Transferred to Middlebury College in Vermont to
  pursue creative writing, graduating in 1971
• Masters degree in creative writing from Syracuse
  University in 1975
• So far, she was writing only poetry, as well as
  translating Spanish-language poetry into English

9
Education and Jobs

• Spent two years traveling Kentucky backroads as
  writer-in-residence
• Holds a number of transitory jobs in various
  states
• After a position as Assistant professor of
  English at the University of Illinois, she
  returns to teach at Middlebury College in Vermont

10
Development of her Writing

• Poetry writing gains her some national
  recognition and prizes, but hardly allows her to
  make a living
• She begins to write fiction (short stories) in
  the late 1970s
• Since she first gained a voice as a poet, it
  still takes her years to write and publish her
  first novel, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their
  Accents (publ. 1991)
• The novel was a success among critics as well as
  the larger public, winning several fiction prizes

11
Development of her Writing

• Novel began one of her trademarks drawing from
  personal experience
• Most of the characters and incidents in the novel
  were inspired by actual people and events (like
  the Garcia girls in the book, she is one of four
  sisters)
• After the novel appeared in print, her mother
  refused to speak to her for several months and
  her sisters first disdained her for her open
  treatment of the family in the book.
• Eventually, however, her family came to embrace
  and be proud of her work.

12
Her Work and the Literary Landscape

• Alvarez becomes spokesperson of a growing group
  of Latina writers, although she resents such a
  role, saying that There is no spokesperson!
  There are many realities, different shades and
  classes.
• Thus, she also doesnt fit into neat categories
  of American literary landscapes.
• She is neither a mainstream American writer nor a
  Dominican in the traditional sense.
• She rejects being placed into the margins or
  understood only as if she was writing exclusively
  for Latinos/as
• Claims that a writer coming from outside of the
  mainstream can make a unique contribution to
  writing about the American experience

13
Other works

• In the Time of the Butterflies (1994)
• She also continues to write and publish poetry
• Yo! (about her alter ego, Yolanda, who is the
  main narrator of How the Garcia Girls Lost Their
  Accent)
• Fourth novel In the Name of Salome
• Eventually also publishes a childrens book, a
  book for young adults, and a cook book

14
Motivation for Writing

• She claims in interviews that she writes to
  discover what she is thinking, to discover who
  she is, and to understand the world in general.
• Her role model Scheherazade, the story teller of
  Thousand and One Nights
• My heroine of all times is Scheherazade, who by
  the telling of stories gains her life, saves the
  other women in the kingdom, and transforms the
  sultans hatred to love.

15
How the García Girls Lost Their Accent

• Divided into 3 sections that work backwards
  (chronologically)
• I 1989-1972
• II 1970-1960
• III 1960-1956
• Alvarez provides a genealogical graph up front
  (Try to detect the humor in it!)
• The García girls Carla, Sandra (Sandi), Yolanda
  (Yo, Yo Yo, Joe), Sofía (Fifi).