how+the+garcia+girls+lost+their+accents

Back to Dominican Immigration =//How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents//, By Julia Alvarez= This story is about how four sisters are forced to flee the Dominican Republic with their parents. They move to New York City and try to adapt to American culture. They find this new culture and their Dominican culture clashing together forming difficult life problems each girl must resolve. This book does contain some sauciness. It briefly mentions marijuana and alcohol and deals with sex a lot. This book is best suited for eleventh and twelfth graders in AP English classes or choice reads for mature readers.

**Challenging Theme: Strengthening of Family Through Adversary**
Throughout the book, //How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents//, the girls, Carla, Sandi, Yolanda, and Sofia have a very unique relationship. At the end of the book, the girls are young and have stronger relationships with their cousins than they do with their sisters. However, when the girls are taken from their home with their parents to the United States, they only have each other and there is a bond that starts to grow between the girls. They become confidants and share their secrets with each other; the struggles that they encounter from teachers, fellow students, and challenges to their old culture are fought as a team, rather than having to do it alone. As the girls grow older, they move away from each other, but the bond is still evident around the times of year that they come together. For their fathers birthday they all come together and they get up before everyone else on Christmas morning to talk. By moving to America, the girls learned to count on each other for support and their family became closer.
 * Overview**

This activity would be something that you would start prior to reading this book. I would have the class divide into divisions of a family (cousins, aunts, uncles, etc.).
 * Ways to teach the theme**
 * 1) They would all live in different compounds just as the Garcia girls do with their cousins; however, they would only be sectioned off by lines put down on the floor by tape. All of the different parts of the family would be allowed to interact with each other and form different relationships within the family. Each student would be given a role card that they must adhere to. (One student would be the father, mother, oldest child, etc.)
 * 2) Once the kids start to put themselves in the scenario, take one of the most popular families out of the classroom to the library and tell them that they have now moved out of the country they were living in and must assimillate to the culture within their new country. (I would discuss this project with the librarian and ask for their help in role playing with the students).
 * 3) I would make up some cultural norms and things that the students must learn that will require them to work as a team to achieve that goal. Remind students before you leave that the roles they were assigned earlier still need to be followed.
 * 4) Back in your classroom, allow things to continue just as they did before. Occasionally bring students from the library back in for visits to their native country, but don't allow them to stay for very long. When the visiting member is back, the other students must fill them in on what has been happening.
 * 5) The goal of this lesson would be to have students that went to the library talk about how they had to depend on each other and work together as a family to achieve their goals. Have students from both groups talk about what it was like to have to leave the family that they had in the classroom and how that affected the work they did later.
 * 6) The students who would have been library will need to talk about what it was like to do things in a way that was not comfortable. Also, those students will be asked what it was like to have to follow completely new ideas to gather information and achieve their goal.

// Some discussion questions I would ask students would have to do with this activity: // // General discussion questions that do not have relation to the above activity: //
 * Discussion Questions**
 * 1) How did it feel to be uprooted from what was "normal" to you?
 * 2) For those of you that stayed in the class, how did it feel to have those people taken away from you?
 * 3) How hard was it use the new values to gather information?
 * 4) How helpful were the people in the library when you asked for help? Did they help you? Ignore you?
 * 1) How do you think you would feel if you were taken away from your friends and family and forced to move to a new country, learn a different language, and adjust to new cultural rules?
 * 2) Have any of you had experiences like this? How did it make you feel?
 * 3) What if you couldn't go back home because of disputes with the government?

Lesson Plans
 * Suggested Links/Resources**
 * [|Becoming an Immigrant] - This lesson plan will allow students to take a step outside of their comfort zone and explore what it would feel like to be an immigrant.
 * [|Create the Culture Capsule] - With this lesson plan, students will research different immigrant groups and then create "culture capsules" that will allow the native culture to stay alive and thrive in the United States.

**Challenging Theme: Old World Values vs. American Values**
This novel repeatedly touches on “Old World” values versus American values. At several points the author describes the culture clash from the varied perspectives of the four daughters: Carla, Sandi, Yolanda and Sophia. As the girls adjust to American life they are shown who they are by contrasts of who they are not. Sometimes “who they are not” is American, sometimes Dominican.
 * Overview**

This novel creates a good reason to have students learn about the history, politics, and culture of the Dominican Republic.
 * Overview**


 * Discussion Questions**
 * 1) What are the class dimensions of the Dominican society? How do the wealth live compared to their servants?
 * 2) What are the different social roles for men and women in the novel?
 * 3) What differences and conflicts exist between generations?
 * 4) Who is Trujilio? How did he come to power? What role did the CIA and American government play in his rule?

Challenging Theme: Dynamics of male/female relationships
Throughout the book //How the Garcia Sisters Lost Their Accents,// Carla, Sandi, Yolanda, and Sofia struggle to find their place in the United States and the Dominican Republic. As they grew up, the sisters were surrounded by many family members, and they learned how to interact with the opposite sex based on this close family interaction. Male domination was common in the Dominican Republic. After they came to the United States, they had to form different relationships, with new and different people in order to fit into society. This book explores the dynamics of male/female relationships in two different cultures and follows four sisters on their journey from child to adulthood.  Some examples:  Page 120 – Fifi’s boyfriend tells her that reading is junk in her head and she has better things to do  Page 127 – Speaking of cousin Mundin, “When he’s in the States, he’s one of us, our buddy. But back on the Island, he struts and turns macho, needling us with the unfair advantage being male here gives him.”
 * Overview**

 **Discussion Questions**
 * 1)  This book recounts events that took place from 1956 to 1989. Do you think this time period played a role in how the sisters were treated in both the USA and Mexico? Are women still treated in this manner today?
 * 2)  Do you think the United States is a male dominated society? Why or why not?
 * 3)  How would you feel if you lived in a male dominated society like the Dominican Republic? How would your life change? What would you do differently on a daily basis?

Lesson Plans
 * Suggested Links/Resources**
 *  [|Where We Came From] - Social Studies Activity - Children will explore their family heritage. In preparation for the activity, have children ask their parents and relatives to list the countries where their ancestors were born.
 *  [|Reasons for Immigration] - Lesson Objectives: To identify the forces behind the recent immigration patterns, legal and illegal, into the United States. To understand the roles economics and politics play in shaping the immigrants’ experience and the reactions of Americans already living in the United States. To reflect on these experiences by assuming the point of view of a young Dominican American.

[|Wikipedia]  [|Enotes] Study Guide  [|Sparknotes]  [|Julia Alvarez].com