How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents

Plot Description: It's a long way from Santo Domingo to the Bronx, but if anyone can go the distance, it's the Garcia girls. Four lively latinas plunged from a pampered life of privilege on an island compound into the big-city chaos of New York, they rebel against Mami and Papi's old-world discipline and embrace all that America has to offer. This family epic follows several generations of the Garcia and de la Torre families as they struggle to hold together a sense of family solidarity in the midst of migration, divorces, family disputes, and cultural change. Along with other writers and artists, Alvarez contributed to the articulation of a new Dominican-American identity. In addition, this novel shares a space along with other works written by Caribbean immigrants concerned with exploring the experience of Spanish speakers and their descendants in the United States.