Inherited Cultural Identity, Feminist Concerns, and a Sense of Home in How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents Anonymous College

The struggle for purpose, identity, and fulfillment has been difficult for a young woman in America through the centuries, as depicted by the various iterations of American domestic literature. From the “angel in the house” trope to feminist concerns of female independence, the genre has grappled with how women establish themselves in the world and function within their domestic circles (or lack thereof.) This challenge is hard enough, but with the added complication of race, immigration, and cultural identity, the topic becomes even more nuanced. How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents recounts the struggle of the Garcia girls to adapt to their lives as immigrants in America. Their struggle to feel truly at home in the United States is compounded by their fractured sense of Dominican identity and growing disconnection from their elders; who both try to force them to assimilate to the “higher” parts of American culture while also maintaining traditional values. The sisters react in various ways, but all of them end up with fragmented ideas of their family roots, a confused sense of sexuality, personal identities lost between the past and the future, and a confused sense of home.

The Garcia girls are privileged in their...