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Julia Alvarez (1951- )

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Julia Alvarez (1951- ) Background and Biography Early Life in Dominican Republic Born March 27, 1951 Spent the first ten years of her life in the country of her birth ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: 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).
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