Looking Back to Move Forward: Cultural and Language Conflicts in Julia Alvarez's How the García Girls Lost their Accents

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Engelse taal en cultuur (BA)

Bruijn, Babet de (2016)

Looking Back to Move Forward: Cultural and Language Conflicts in Julia Alvarez's How the García Girls Lost their Accents

Bachelor thesis | Engelse taal en cultuur (BA)

This thesis provides a close reading of Julia Alvarez’s How the García Girls Lost their Accents. In the novel, the García family is forced to flee to the United States to escape Rafael Trujillo’s dictatorial regime in the Dominican Republic. The Garcías’ forced migration is a traumatic experience which has tremendous consequences for the entire family. This thesis concentrates on the cultural conflicts that arise with migration, focusing first on the contrast between the communal Latino culture and the individualistic North American culture, then on the different views on gender and sexuality in the Dominican Republic and the United States, and lastly on the importance of language, concluding that the main protagonist Yolanda’s identity is constituted in language.

Author: Bruijn, Babet de

Faculty: Faculty of Humanities

Supervisors: Kardux, Johanna

ECTS Credits: 10

Language: en

Leiden University Student Repository

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Looking Back to Move Forward: Cultural and Language Conflicts in Julia Alvarez's How the García Girls Lost their Accents