#protecting my mental health but drawing other sexy men for people instead of my one true sexy man

[ahmnom]

I have grown so attached to a character that I will no longer be drawing ship art of any other bitch but ME sorry guys I'm not in my hoe phase anymore I'm ready to settle

[girltodaywomentomorrow]

How The Garcia Girls Lost more than their Accents

Every time I have moved, I have lost something. From stuffed animals to friendships, moving opened one door while closing another. The Garcia girls are no different from me. Seriously, we are all Hispanic women who grew up in a Hispanic household but hid our culture from people who didn’t understand to fit in. I never lost an accent because I never had one, but these four girls who start the story off as young women lost more than just their accents.

CULTURAL IDENTIY:

The four girls, Carla, Sandra, Yolanda and Sofia, are our Garcia girls. They were all born in The Dominican Republic with blessings of fortune that many other citizens did not have. When their father resisted the dictatorship rule, they had to leave their friends, family and home.

In the first chapter, Yolanda, the rebellious tom boy writer of the family, travelled back to the DR to find a home she didn’t feel in the states. “Standing here in the quiet, she believes she has never felt at home in the States, never” (Julia Alvarez, 12). She brings up an important idea that if she was in trouble while visiting the DR, would she call “...for help...[in] English or Spanish?...”(13) At a party one of her aunt’s poet friends “...argued that no matter how much of it one lost, in the midst of some profound emotion, one would revert to one’s mother tongue...”(13) Later, when Yolanda feels unsafe with two men with machetes, the only way she can communicated with them is through English. “...As if the admission itself loosens her tongue, she begins to speak English...(20)

As stated above, Yolanda came “home” to claim her Dominican identity after having to hide it for many years with classmates, friends and eventual lovers yet when it came down to a moment where she needed her Dominican identity to help her- her American identity spoke up instead. 

The poet at the party, “...put Yolanda through a series of situations. What language, he asked, looking pointedly into her eyes, did she love in?” (13) This is a question Yolanda had been trying to answer since her and her ex husband broke up. “...She could not make out his words. They were clean, bright sounds...they met nothing to her...’What are you trying to say’ she kept asking...He spoke kindly but in a language she had never heard before.”(77)

It’s unfair to put these women in boxes but it has been happening their whole life. Starting with their mother who chose colors specifically for them so she could identify them better. Each girl had to represent something. They could not over lap, they could be more than one thing. 

The girls did not simply lose boyfriends, relationships with their fathers or even their accents, they lost their cultural identity.

When they moved to America they lost a home and as they grew up in America, they never really gained a new one. 

INNOCENCE

Sofia was the youngest daughter whose color was white even though she always wanted it to be pink. While Yo struggled with cultural identity, she struggled with innocence. “Sofia was the one without degrees. She had always gone her own way...she always downplayed her choices, calling them accidents...She was considered the plain one...yet she was the one with non stop boyfriends...”(28) Her and her father Carlos, “...always had problems...”(27) “I don’t want loose women in my family...he had cautioned.”(28) Sofia was the first to leave. She was pushed out when her father found letters from a man she met in Colombia. He accused her of “...dragging [his] good name through the mud...”(30) 

This novel takes place in the 1980s and when Sofia becomes sexually active, it is during the sex revolution of the 1960s.  So although, Sofia looses her innocence and her relationship with her father, she only gains a sexual freedom. It is important to show women exploring their sexuality but it should be noted that Sofia, although found very sexy by her sister’s partners and Otto’s friends, had few sexual partners. After being exiled from her home, she ran to find Otto and create a new life with him. This is not a judgmental statement, just an observation that Sofia is American in her sexual adventures, as she is more free to be sexual, but still Dominican in her want for a family and home to protect her. 

She may have lost her innocence but she gained a freedom many Dominican women of her time would never have.

MENTAL HEALTH

Two out of the four Garcia girls sought mental help throughout the novel. While Yolanda checked into the hospital after her divorce, Sandra, the second oldest child, checked into a mental hospital after becoming anorexic during her time in graduate school. From a young age, she always had trouble expressing herself, “...I was a changed child...” after a fall broke her arm and she was no longer able to express herself through art. “Months of pampering and the ridicule…had turned me inward. I was sullen and dependent on my mother’s sole attention…the classic temperament of the artist but without anything to show....I could no longer draw. My hand had lost it’s art. (254) Sandra’s hands come back to haunt her later in life when she believes she is going back in evolution and becoming a monkey. “And my Sandi holds up her hands to me...and she screams, Monkey hands, monkey hands.”(55) Sandra is an artist and artist feel too much. When she came to America she was unable to express herself with English but art helped her. Once art had left her life she continued to try to seek a way of expression but never was able to. This lead to her mental break down. She spoke about losing her humanity which to her was always her art. For so long art defined her but when she lost that, she lost her self. She became overly sensitive after her time in the hospital and her mother and father would not like to talk about it. Her sisters made jokes about it. She was forever unstable because her lack communication in a world that was never trying to understand her. 

FAMILY

At the center of this book is family and if you want to talk about family you should seek time with the family child psychologist, Carla, the oldest Garcia sister. Out of all the sisters, she had the toughest time in America. She was harassed in school by mean boys and had a disgusting encounter with a man in a car during puberty. Unlike her other sisters, she dealt with her issues as adult and became a psychologist writing a paper called, “I Was There Too.”(41) In the paper she talked ill of her mother’s “...color system..[which she believed] had weaken the four girls identify differentiation abilities and made them forever unclear about personality and boundaries.” (41) What really weakened the family was the quickness the mother and father had sending their girls away when problems arose. From Sandra’s mental breakdown to Sofia being kicked out of the family home. Both parents, although saying they loved their girls, could never quite take care of them. They brought them to a new country with not English knowledge, sent them away to boarding school during prime years that family is needed and when times got tough they quickly found someone else to help them. Their family became broken the moment they left the DR because the parents were thinking about what was best for their namesake not their children. 

All four girls are heroes for creating a life for themselves. Their right of passage was their own personal journey with creating a dual identity as an American women and a Dominican women. Although they were not close as their parents like to think, “Did they get along?” Dr. Tandleman glanced up...The siblings…were they close? was there a a lot of rivalry between them?...’They’re sisters,’ she said by way of explanation.” (53), they each were woven into each other’s life. They each went through a personal experience of  lost of cultural identity, lost of innocence while also all having mental health and family problems. Their journeys were unique to themselves but one universal to their family because at the end of the day they were not individuals, they were The Garcia girls and that individualism is the greatest lost they had.