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Julia Alvarez ’s How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents
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method aims to explore and understanding the meaning of social phenomena by developing the theoretical lens. More explain, Maxwell 1996 describes the purpose of qualitative research is to discover the meaning of the events or
situations; to understand the particular context; to understand the process by which the events take place; to identify unexpected phenomena and generate new “grounded” theories; and to develop causal explanation.
3.3 Research Subject and Context
The subject of this research is a novel entitled How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents. The novel, which consists of 307 pages, is the first novel of a Dominican-American writer, Julia Alvarez. It was firstly published by Algonquin
Books of Chapel Hill in 1991. The novel is divided into three chapters in which each chapter consists of five sub-chapters. This research is aimed to figure out how hybrid identities of the main characters are constructed in the novel and
how the main characters manifest their hybrid identity. The focus of this research is the main characters Garcia sisters named Carla, Sandi, Yolanda and Sofia who undergo hybrid identities as the impact of their migration from Dominican
Republic to the United States. Further, the research is framed by concept of hybridity as proposed by Bhabha 1994.
3.4 Research Procedure
The research is generally aimed to investigate the issue of hybrid identity in the novel How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents 1991 by Julia Alvarez. To do that, the novel is analyzed using the concept of hybridity proposed by Homi
Bhabha 1994. Besides, this research employs a descriptive qualitative method to achieve the aims of the study.
Resti Siti Nurlaila, 2014 The Construction of Hybrid Identity in
Julia Alvarez ’s How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents
Univeristas Pendidikan Indonesia | repository.upi.edu | perpustakaan.upi.edu
3.5 Data Collection
The data in this research were collected from the novel entitled How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents 1991 by Julia Alvarez. The collected data are in the form of utterances, actions, thoughts and attitudes of the main characters the
Garcia Sisters, which are critically selected and analyzed as the textual evidence to answer the research questions.
3.6 Data Analysis
The collected data were analyzed using the framework of hybridity as proposed by Homi Bhabha 1994. In conducting the research, the following steps have been taken:
1. Reading thoroughly and repeatedly to achieve comprehensive understanding of the novel.
2. Finding and collecting the textual evidence from the novel How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents containing
the issue of hybrid identity. 3.
Analyzing the collected data by addressing the concept of hybridity proposed by Homi Bhabha 1994. 4.
Interpreting the data 5.
Drawing conclusion and suggestion.
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3.7 Data Presentation
The following tables are the samples of the analyzed data which reveal the hybrid identity construction and the characters‟ ways in manifesting their hybrid identity.
TABLE 1 Hybrid Identities Construction of the Main Characters
1. In -between Past and Present
Resti Siti Nurlaila, 2014 The Construction of Hybrid Identity in
Julia Alvarez ’s How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents
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No Main Characters
ChapterPage Textual Evidence
Comments
1 Carla
Trespass 151 Carla thought yearningly of the lush
grasses and thick-limbed, vine ladened trees around the compound
back home. Under the amapola tree her best-friend cousin, Lucinda, and
she had told each other what each knew about how babies were made.
What is Lucinda doing right this moment? Carla wondered.
The moment when Carla recalled her memories shows that she could not forget her old home in
Dominican Republic even though she now lives in the United States. This indicates that Carla is
trapped between her past memories and her present life.
2 Sandi
The Floor Show 174
Sandi realized with a pang one of the things that had been missing in
the last few months. It was precisely this kind of attention paid
to them. At home there had always been a chauffeur opening
car door or a gardener tipping his hat and a half dozen maids
Sandi is trapped in her past memories that appear in her present life in United States. The passage
tells that Sandi misses the special attention she got in Dominican Republic, that she does not get
in America. Her yearning towards the special attention indicates that she could not shed away
her past life in Dominican Republic.
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29
and nursemaids acting as if the health and well-being of the de la
Torre-Garcia Children were of wide public concern.
3 Yolanda
The Drum 290
There are still times I wake up at three o‟clock in the morning and
peer into the darkness. At that hour and in that loneliness, I hear
her, a black furred thing lurking in the corners of my life, her
magenta mouth opening, wailing over some violation that lies at
the center of my art.
Yolanda‟s hallucination about the Mother Cat symbolizes a connection with her childhood in
Dominican Republic. It indicates that Yolanda could not overlook her past life, even though she
already left the Island many years ago. This may shows that Yolanda is also trapped between the
memories of her past life and her present life.
2. In-between Dominican and American
No Main Characters
ChapterPage Textual Evidence
Comments
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Julia Alvarez ’s How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents
Univeristas Pendidikan Indonesia | repository.upi.edu | perpustakaan.upi.edu
1 Sandi
The Floor Show 181
As Mrs. Fanning turned to follow, she leaned towards Sandi‟s father
and brushed her lips on his. Sandi didn‟t know whether to stand there
foolishly or dash in and let the door fall
on this
uncomfortable
moment… Relieved, she now felt the full and shocking weight of
what she had just witnessed. A married
American woman
kissing her father
” At the early years of migration, Sandi and her
family had dinner with the Fannings in a Spanish restaurant. During those years, Sandi was not
used to American life and cultures. Sandi feels uncanny as she witnessed Mrs. Fanning, who
was drunk, suddenly kissed her father. In Dominican Republic, it is unconscionable for
married woman to have an affair, or to do such an inappropriate action toward another man.
Sandi‟s surprised feeling indicates that Sandi is in-between her old and new cultures: Dominican
and American.
2 Yolanda
The Four Girls 48
“The lover knew Yolanda would not have wanted him to know about
this indelicacy of her body. She did not even like to pluck her eyebrows
in his presence. An immediate bathrobe after her bath. Lights out
The passage tells that as an Americans, Yolanda made love with her lover, Clive. It is common
for the Americans to have premarital sex. However, as a Catholic and Dominicans,
Yolanda protects the holiness of her body by turned off the lights after she made love or
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Julia Alvarez ’s How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents
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when they made love. Other times, she carried on about the Great
Mother and the holiness of the body and sexual energy being eternal
delight. Sometimes,
he complained
he felt
caught between the woman’s libber and
the Catholic señorita
. “You sound like my ex,” she accused him.” p.
48 immediate bathrobe after bath. In Dominican
Republic, women must protect their bodies like hidden treasure. This shows that Yolanda is
trapped between American and Dominican religious cultural practices.
3 Sofia
A Regular Revolution
120-121 “This,” Manuel Gustavo says,
holding the book up like a dirty diaper, “is junk in your head. You
have better things to do.” He tosses
the book on the coffee table. Fifi pales, though her two blushed-
on cheeks blush on. She stands quickly, hands on her hips, eyes
narrowing, the Fifi we know and Sofia spends a year at Tia Carmen
‟s house in Dominican Republic as the „punishment‟ of
having a bag of marijuana. After a year staying in Dominican Republic, Sofia is beautifully
acclimated to life on the Island. During her exile, Sofia met Manuel, her illegitimate cousin whom
she was dating. She was surprised when Manuel stopped her from reading a book, and then she
resisted. As a common Americans, Sofia has the
Resti Siti Nurlaila, 2014 The Construction of Hybrid Identity in
Julia Alvarez ’s How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents
Univeristas Pendidikan Indonesia | repository.upi.edu | perpustakaan.upi.edu
love.
“You have no right to tell me what I can and can’t do”
“¡Que no¡” Manuel challenges. “No “Fifi asserts.
One by one we three sisters exit, cheering Fifi on under our breaths.
A few minutes later we hear the pickup roar down the driveway, and
Fifi comes sobbing into the bedroom.
“Fifi, he asked for it,” we say. “Don‟t let him push you around.
You‟re a free spirit,” we remind
her.
But within the hour, Fifi is on the phone with Manuelito, pleading
for forgiveness.
” freedom to do what she wants. However,
Dominican Republic exhibits a strong, male oriented-culture much of which was inherited
from Spanish colonialist. It means that women in Dominican Republic are expected to obey their
fathers or husbands. The fact that Sofia pleads for Manuel forgiveness shows that she felt
wronged about her resistance; she thought that as a Dominican women she should obey what
Manuel says. This indicates that Sofia is trapped between the American culture and Dominican
machismo culture.
TABLE 2
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Julia Alvarez ’s How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents
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33
The Characters’ Ways in Manifesting Their Hybrid Identities
No The ways of dealing with
hybrid identity Chapter
Page Textual Evidence
Comments
1 Adopting
American Life A Regular
Revolutio n
108- 109
We learned to forge Mami‟s signature and went just about
everywhere to dance weekends and football
weekends and
snow
sculpture weekends We could kiss and not get pregnant. We could
smoke and no great aunt would smell us and croak. Garcia
Sisters The Garcia sisters manifest their hybrid
identities in three ways: adopting American life, embracing American values and preserving
Dominican cultures. The ways of adopting American life is depicted as the sisters were
having premarital sex, smoking marijuana and cigarette, and drinking alcohol. The fact that the
sisters kiss and smoke indicates that they try to develop American teenage life and begin to lose
the traditional values of Dominican Republic which are more rigid toward social interactions.
In Dominican
Republic, girls
must be
chaperoned at all times, so that they cannot kiss
Resti Siti Nurlaila, 2014 The Construction of Hybrid Identity in
Julia Alvarez ’s How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents
Univeristas Pendidikan Indonesia | repository.upi.edu | perpustakaan.upi.edu
or smoke freely like in the United States
2 Embracing
American Values
The Antojos
9-10 “I can‟t wait to eat some guavas.
Maybe I can pick some when I go north in a few days.”
“By yourself?” Tia Carmen shakes
her head at mere thought. “This is not the States,” Tia Flor
says, with a knowing smile. “A woman just doesn‟t travel alone in
this country. Especially this day.” …. “I can take care of myself,”
Yolanda reassures them. The passage indicates that Yolanda could not
hide her American identity, although she is in Dominican Republic. At that time in Dominican
Republic, woman does not travel alone. However, the fact that Yolanda wants to pick
guavas alone in Dominican Republic shows that Yolanda ignores the Dominican cultures and
develops the American value which is being an independent woman.
3 Preserving
Dominican Cultures
The Rudy Elmenhurs
t Story
99-100 Instead, I did something that even a
lapsed Catholic I still did for good
luck on nights before exams. I opened my drawer and took the
crucifix I kept hidden under my clothes, and I put it under pillow
In contrast with previous evidence, the sisters also manifest their hybrid identity by preserving
the Dominican cultures such as following Catholic tenets like mentioning God in a pray
and refusing to sleep with boys, keeping a crucifix, and embracing the customs of
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Julia Alvarez ’s How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents
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35
for the night. The large crucifix had been a “security blanket” I
took to bed with me after years coming to this country. Yolanda
Dominican woman which is traditional, passive and obedient. This passage shows that even
though Yolanda
already left
Dominican Republic for many years, Yolanda still maintains
her religious Dominican cultures by keeping the crucifix in the drawer and putting it under pillow
for good luck in exams.
[Type text]
Resti Siti Nurlaila, 2014 The Construction of Hybrid Identity in
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CHAPTER V
CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
This chapter elaborates conclusions of the research, which refer to findings and discussion in the previous chapter. In addition, this chapter also provides suggestion for
those who may want to investigate related issue.
5.1 Conclusions
The research has investigated the issue of hybrid identity in Julia Alvarez’s novel entitled How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accents 1991. Based on the data analysis, the
hybrid identity of the main characters, the Garcia sisters, is constructed in, to use Bhabha’s terms the ‘Third Space’, or the space of in-betweeness. The in-between space
occupied by the Garcia sisters is categorized into in-between past and present, and in- between Dominican and American cultures. As the result of living between two different
countries and cultural traditions, the sisters embody both identities as Dominican and American.
The Garcia sisters, except the youngest sister Sofia, are caught between Dominican past and the United States present. The Garc
ia sisters’ in-between past and present is represented in the form of memories, and for Yolanda also the hallucination.
The memories and hallucination that emerge and disrupt the sisters’ present life appear mostly during the early years of their migration to the United States. The memories of
the Island symbolize the sisters’ yearning towards their old home, the Dominican Republic. Along with the hallucination, the memories also portray the trauma that the
sisters had back in the Dominican Republic. The memories and hallucination indicate that the Garcia sisters could not forget
their old home even though they already moved to the United States. In other words, the
[Type text]
Resti Siti Nurlaila, 2014 The Construction of Hybrid Identity in
Julia Alvarez ’s How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents
Univeristas Pendidikan Indonesia | repository.upi.edu | perpustakaan.upi.edu
past becomes inseparable part of the Garcia sisters’ life; part of them embodies
Dominican identity and another part embodies American identity. However, unlike the three sisters, Sofia is the one who does not experience the in-between past and present
due to the very short time she spent in Dominican Republic. Due to her lacks of memories of the Island, Sofia is considered as the most rebellious and Americanized
among the sisters. Sofia mostly spent her childhood, hit the puberty, and grew up in the United States, so that she was more accustomed to American life than Dominican life.
The Garcia sisters are also caught between Dominican and American cultures. This in-betweeness is resulted from their migration, from living in two different
countries: the Dominican Republic and the United States. The sisters’ migration forces them to experience Dominican and American life, and both its cultures. The space of in-
betweeness that is occupied by the Garcia sisters constructs their doubled, hybrid identity as Dominican-American. The in-betweeness also leads the sisters to the feeling of
displacement, linguistic and cultural inadequacy, and the sense of ‘unhomely. The term ‘unhomely’ is used to refer to the situation when immigrants feel ‘out of place’. In the
novel, ‘unhomely’ is especially experienced by Yolanda who is the most emphasized
character in the novel. The in-betweeness makes Yolanda feels that she belongs to either the Dominican Republic or the United States and neither of them.
Furthermore, it can be concluded that the Garcia sisters manifest their identity in three ways which are categorized into adopting American life, embracing American
values and preserving Dominican cultures. They struggle to become the part of American society and to be the typical Americans by adopting American life, while at the same
time they are not rejecting the Dominican cultural traditions and heritage. The facts that the Garcia sisters adopt American life and embrace American
values indicate their desire to ‘looking for a join’, to be fully accepted into American society. Given that the sisters lived within American society, they wish to become a part
of them. Therefore, the sisters strive to become Americans, to ‘join’ them by adjusting the American life and embracing the values that belong to the Americans in general. The
[Type text]
Resti Siti Nurlaila, 2014 The Construction of Hybrid Identity in
Julia Alvarez ’s How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents
Univeristas Pendidikan Indonesia | repository.upi.edu | perpustakaan.upi.edu
fact that Garcia sisters adopt American life and embrace American values also symbolizes that the sisters undergo the process of mimicry. However, the sisters’
mimicry towards American life and cultures is ‘almost the same, but not quite’. It means
that they cannot perfectly mimic the American life, because the sisters still perceive some of Dominican cultural traditions.
Besides adopting American life and embracing American values, the Garcia sisters also manifest their hybrid identity by preserving their origin homeland cultures,
Dominican cultures. The sisters are not rejecting the Dominican heritage and still retain the Dominican cultural traditions. They perceive the Dominican cultures although they
admitted that they are more than adjusted into American life and they had been pretty well Americanized.
Hybrid identity that is experienced by the sisters leads them to encounter a conflicted, complicated feeling. They desire to be fully accepted into American society
by adopting American life, however, they still retain their Dominican cultural traditions. The sister cannot simply disregard their old home because there are memories, family and
friends in Dominican Republic. The sisters will always be a divided self; they existed in a limbo with hybrid identity. They may lose the Dominican accents, like the title of the
novel, but they cannot completely ignore their Dominican past, their old home.
5.2 Suggestions
