julia alvarez
Women are silenced and shut out frequently because of their gender. Society
seeks men as the voice for politics, law, and decision making. In television and the
news it is these old men you see making the debates and decisions that will happen in
the world. Few women get to act as spokes to people advocate and represent from the
female perspective. It feels like it’s a privilege rather than a right. One of the few people I
remember reading from literature class is a woman named Julia Alvarez. This Dominican
woman is one of the most well known Latina writers all over the world and had a
hand in expanding the story of three sisters who died for their fight against a dictator.
She is known for tying in her opinions with her political views and writes beautifully,
combining the two together (Suarez, 2004). Julia Alvarez is a woman who does not want
to be known as a speaker for Latin women, but for what she has voiced through her books
and the suffering of not just Latin American, women but women around the world.
Julia Alvarez’s childhood consisted of moving back and forth between the United
States and the Dominican Republic since the age of three months old. Her parents were
well off and able to put her through successful boarding schools in order to help get the
best education possible. The young Julia traveled back and forth from then on between
her schools in the U.S. and the Dominican Republic to visit family. As she transitioned
between two different cultures; the discrimination she faced for being a foreigner dawned
on her. During the 1950-1960s the U.S. was still going through dark times during its
discrimination era, when racism was an issue being addressed at a national scale. Julia
Alvarez became surrounded by people who judged her and harassed her for who she was.
Trading back and forth between two countries took a huge toll on her individualism, as
she balanced between who she needed to be and who she was by default. Her childhood
she suffered from an identity crisis but in all made her a stronger writer, which evidently
became her passion.
After being picked up by a publisher after years of school in the University of
Connecticut she wrote book after book, her audience slowly rising. One of the biggest
books she is known for writing across the world is In the Time of the Butterflies about
three sisters and their suffering at the hand of a dictator named Trujillo who at the time
threatened their lives during his reign in the Dominican Republic. After researching and
collecting entries Julia Alvarez organized the sister’s stories from different points of view
for her book about the sisters’ journey and evidently wrote about their deaths in the end.
Due to her retelling of the sister’s story she was able to ignite awareness about the
suffering of women and eventually bringing to light female martyrs for that part of the
world (Alvarez, 1995). Their story of suffering and self sacrifice for what they believed
in and wanted to protect was a big hit especially and as an after effect created an
important date of awareness against woman violence. Violence occurs most frequently
among women it is something embedded in many cultures. What Julia Alvarez has
become is someone who represents the rise of female empowerment through her books
and her personal trials that involves with being bi-cultural by retelling the story of women
who impacted her country historically change among her books and talking about
personal experiences in her books. Though she herself has voiced not wanting to be a
part of the movement directly she is all for trying to enforce the idea that yeah people still
have to deal with cultural differences and discrimination today but it’s important to have
more people aware f it in order to do something about it (Parikh, 2011).
seeks men as the voice for politics, law, and decision making. In television and the
news it is these old men you see making the debates and decisions that will happen in
the world. Few women get to act as spokes to people advocate and represent from the
female perspective. It feels like it’s a privilege rather than a right. One of the few people I
remember reading from literature class is a woman named Julia Alvarez. This Dominican
woman is one of the most well known Latina writers all over the world and had a
hand in expanding the story of three sisters who died for their fight against a dictator.
She is known for tying in her opinions with her political views and writes beautifully,
combining the two together (Suarez, 2004). Julia Alvarez is a woman who does not want
to be known as a speaker for Latin women, but for what she has voiced through her books
and the suffering of not just Latin American, women but women around the world.
Julia Alvarez’s childhood consisted of moving back and forth between the United
States and the Dominican Republic since the age of three months old. Her parents were
well off and able to put her through successful boarding schools in order to help get the
best education possible. The young Julia traveled back and forth from then on between
her schools in the U.S. and the Dominican Republic to visit family. As she transitioned
between two different cultures; the discrimination she faced for being a foreigner dawned
on her. During the 1950-1960s the U.S. was still going through dark times during its
discrimination era, when racism was an issue being addressed at a national scale. Julia
Alvarez became surrounded by people who judged her and harassed her for who she was.
Trading back and forth between two countries took a huge toll on her individualism, as
she balanced between who she needed to be and who she was by default. Her childhood
she suffered from an identity crisis but in all made her a stronger writer, which evidently
became her passion.
After being picked up by a publisher after years of school in the University of
Connecticut she wrote book after book, her audience slowly rising. One of the biggest
books she is known for writing across the world is In the Time of the Butterflies about
three sisters and their suffering at the hand of a dictator named Trujillo who at the time
threatened their lives during his reign in the Dominican Republic. After researching and
collecting entries Julia Alvarez organized the sister’s stories from different points of view
for her book about the sisters’ journey and evidently wrote about their deaths in the end.
Due to her retelling of the sister’s story she was able to ignite awareness about the
suffering of women and eventually bringing to light female martyrs for that part of the
world (Alvarez, 1995). Their story of suffering and self sacrifice for what they believed
in and wanted to protect was a big hit especially and as an after effect created an
important date of awareness against woman violence. Violence occurs most frequently
among women it is something embedded in many cultures. What Julia Alvarez has
become is someone who represents the rise of female empowerment through her books
and her personal trials that involves with being bi-cultural by retelling the story of women
who impacted her country historically change among her books and talking about
personal experiences in her books. Though she herself has voiced not wanting to be a
part of the movement directly she is all for trying to enforce the idea that yeah people still
have to deal with cultural differences and discrimination today but it’s important to have
more people aware f it in order to do something about it (Parikh, 2011).
References:
Parikh, C. (2011). Regular Revolutions: Feminist Travels in Julia Alvarez’s How the
Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents and In the Time of the Butterflies. Journals of
Transnational American Studies, Vol.3
Suarez, L. (2004). Julia Alvarez and the Anxiety of Latina Representation. Meridians:
Feminism, Race, Transnational’s, Vol. 5, pp. 117-145
Alvarez, J. (1995). In the Time of the Butterflies. New York: Plume.
Parikh, C. (2011). Regular Revolutions: Feminist Travels in Julia Alvarez’s How the
Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents and In the Time of the Butterflies. Journals of
Transnational American Studies, Vol.3
Suarez, L. (2004). Julia Alvarez and the Anxiety of Latina Representation. Meridians:
Feminism, Race, Transnational’s, Vol. 5, pp. 117-145
Alvarez, J. (1995). In the Time of the Butterflies. New York: Plume.