Let's learn a little bit about the author.

Hi, guys. Apparently all of my blog post did not go through, so I'm going to repost some of the posts I created.

Since we finished the book, I thought it would be nice to learn a bit about the author of this book, Julia Alvarez.

The book we actually read, How The Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, is considered to be one of her most notable works. Some of her other books include "Return to Sender," "Finding Miracles," "Once Upon a Quinceanera", and many more. Many of her works have to do with various conflicts, hardships, and tales of living both as a Dominican and an American.

Julia was born to Dominican parents in NYC on March 27, 1950, but her family moved back to the Dominican Republic when she was only 3 months old. She grew up alongside her sisters, her cousins, and many other family members and maids. In 1960 when she was just 10 years old, her father became involved in a plot to overthrow the country's dictator, Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina. His plans were discovered, however. With the help of an American agent, he was able to get his family out of the country before being arrested or killed.

Alvarez was ecstatic when she discovered she was going back to America. Although she faced homesickness and the fear of not fitting in, she was determined to practice the English language, eat American foods, and befriend American children. She was sent to boarding school at the age of 13, and she returned to the Dominican Republic each summer. She graduated from Abbot Academy in 1967 and attended Connecticut College, then transferred to Middlebury College in Vermont in 1969. She earned a Master’s degree in creative writing from Syracuse University in 1975.

Julia knew that she wanted to be a writer. But in the late sixties, early seventies--African-American writers were just beginning to gain admission into the canon. Latino literature or writers were unheard of, and writing which focused on the lives of minorities were considered of ethnic interest only, the province of sociology.

She eventually fell into teaching, in order to earn a living. She traveled for years with poetry-in-school programs, then began teaching at a highschool level. She eventually moved onto college, and had her works published in small magazines and even won a few writing awards.

In 1991, she published her first novel, "How The Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents" with a small publishing company called Algonquin Books. Her editor, Shannon Ravenel, willing to give "a new voice" a chance. This book was the first of many more to come. (:


-Angelina :DD