Recently I have been in the speed of catching up, but recently in the story “How the Garcia Girls Lost their accents” by Julia Alvarez has become more and more confusing for me. The most difficult part of the story is the fact that it is told in reversed chronological order. If I am correct, the story begins as a family reunion where Yolanda, the main character of the story, is at a family reunion. Later on, or correctly earlier on, Yolanda was lost and asked for help to her destination. I believe the title comes to play here because it states “lost their accents” and it applies to the girls. When Yolanda asked for directions to her families place, her Spanish was very weak. During the family reunion, Yolanda had some difficulties with understanding what her family was telling her. Her family also was worried that she was slowly loosing her heritage. Spanish no longer was her first language and she did not know what the word antojo meant. She also probably forgot what her mother country, Dominican Republic
Based on what I have read, I now have some predictions on what is going to happen. I believe when Yolanda was out of her home country, she became someone else. She was called differently and had lived in a different environment. Her new environment might be a factor of how she lost her accent. Besides becoming someone new, other character might have been someone else earlier on in their lives. During the 70th birthday party of the father Carlos, Carlos seemed to act weak and quiet. He behaved as if he was loosing the right to order his family around. I believe that the father is silent during his party because maybe he no longer has the power he once had. Maybe the girls now have something to say against him from the past if he misbehaves or abuses his power. Right now the girls are adults, but the way they became so is to be found out latter on in the book.
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