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Jung-Ah Lee AP Literature Ms. Lori Porter February 25, 2010

Useless Fathers? Here’s a brief narrative of Daddyland: There are three daughters. Daughter A is neither pretty nor rich. Daughter B is richer than Daughter A and had several Botox shots. Daughter C is the richest among the three but is neither prettier nor uglier. Wealth and culture wise, Daughter C should have had a major plastic makeover and lead the never-wear-the-same-outfit group of the school. However, for some odd reason she’s best friends with Daughter A and dislikes the Botox group, led by Daughter B. Why is this? It all goes back to the real man with power – the fathers.

Julia Alvarez illustrates the impact of fatherhood in two of her books: How the Garcia Girls lost their Accents and Before we were Free. The two fathers have contrasting personalities and different ideologies of a perfect family. The four Garcia Girls, in How the Garcia Girl’s lost their Accents, and the Torres girls, in Before we were Free, experience similar clashes in Dominican Republic with brave and educated fathers fighting against the country’s dictator. However, while the Torres girls live depressing, after the death of their loving father, yet warmer lives, the Garcia Girls suffer from mental destructions and tension in their own home with their machismo father. The effect of fatherhood on the growth of daughters can be seen by comparing the strikingly different father-daughter relationships within the families of these two novels by Julia Alvarez.

Both the Garcias and Torres experience a similar shift in life, from their native country Dominican Republic to the United States. This repetition is present in Alvarez’s own life. At age ten, Alvarez and her family was able to escape the Trujillo dictatorship and move to America. Although it may seem like an escape, the cultural differences were challenging to adjust to, says Alvarez “I lost everything: a homeland, a language, family connections, a way of understanding, a warmth,” (Sirias, 2). This lack of confidence is what changes the personalities of each Garcia girls. Furthermore, while the Garcia girls are culturally strapped in the country of liberty, the United States, Anita Torres is literally caged in her neighbor’s closet, hiding from the dictator’s search, before her departure to America.

Despite the two different circumstances, the biggest factor that heightens the hardships of the girls in both stories is, nonetheless, the restricted permission to self-express. However, the different approaches that the fathers’ take in their circumstances affect their daughters differently and contrastingly. Because the entire Torres family needs to filter their words multiple of times in their heads before it actually comes out of his or her mouths, he buys Anita a diary where she can at least persist on her speaking and writing skills inaudibly. “Quote.” On the other hand, Sr. Garcia is extremely preoccupied with preserving the family’s blood culture he dismisses and rejects his daughter Yoyo’s very first speech she writes. She says, “All hope was lost. ‘He broke it, he broke it’” (Garcia Girls 146). The ripped pieces of her English speech represent the broken and malfunctioning trust for her father and the ability to communicate her repressed and struggling thoughts.

Fortunately, Anita’s father is clearly a nicer, a more amiable and sincere father. This does not mean that Sr. Torres has a more feminine side, but rather, knows how to love and care for his family and is less preoccupied with what most fathers struggle with: money, especially Machos, Dominican Republican men. Going back to the Daughter A, B, C example mentioned at the beginning, Anita can be represented as Daughter C while the four Garcia girls can be grouped into Daughter B. Although Anita’s family is wealthier, the family seeks for more valuable means of life, such as education and thus while Anita receives a diary for her birthday present, “mechanical banks” (264) suggesting “so that my girls start saving their money to take care of us, Mamie, when we’re old and grey” (264). A research conducted by Alfredo Mirande shows that United States’ and Dominican Republic’s idea of a respectable man in a society did not differ so much compared to the differing opinions of being a good father.

When asked “What makes you a good father?” the answers differed by region. According to this article, Latino American men focused on physical aspects such as providing life-necessities, such as food, clothing, shelter and education, while American fathers focused more on ethical and moral aspects such as love and care. This article was striking because every single component of the research on Latino American men was similar to the thoughts of Carlos, the father of the four Garcia girls. He failed to mentally and emotionally bond with his daughters because he was too preoccupied in adjusting to yet holding on to his old cultural traditions. Also, the article states that even within Latino America, the more traditional group of men were much more determined about such attitude that they disregarded the importance education. This is, again, similar to Carlos who dislikes when his daughters extend their thoughts beyond the norm: “Carlos was truly furious. It was bad enough that his daughter was rebelling, but here was his own wife joining forces with her. Soon he would be surrounded by a houseful of independent American women” (145-146). Although this article proves the different attitudes of men and fathers, there are always exceptions. The brave and compassionate father in Before we were Free contains both the good sides of the differing ideals of both the United States and Latin America. Although he is concerned and busy with assassinating the evil dictator, he always cares for the safety, abundance of his family. This manliness, machismo, is undoubtedly similar to what Mirande has proved in his article, fighting for independence against the evil Trujillo; however, readers are repeatedly touched by the sensitive and caring side of this father, taking risks for the safety and best for his daughters: “quote.”

Compared to Anita de la Torres, the Garcia Girls have much more character. Having a unique character may not always be a compliment, in this case. Although Anita is more quiet and much more normal than the four girls who …sounded pretty wild for all that. There had been several divorces among them, including Yolanda’s. The oldest a child psychologist, had married the analyst she’d been seeing when her first marriage broke up, something of the sort. The second one was doing a lot of drugs to keep her weight down. The youngest had just gone off with a German man when they discovered she was pregnant (47). Is it because of the father’s Machisimo that basically led to a destruction of the family? A father is believed to lead his family, protect his family and lastly love his family. Anita, without her brave and loving father, nervously yet subtly adjusts and accepts her new life in New York. “quote.”

Maybe some father figures only contaminate the cup of harmony rather than filling it, especially in a family with daughters, only expecting superior treatment from his servant-like so called daughters. “We don’t even try anymore to raise consciousness here” (121) says Yoyo, describing her household – a household with a father, but a household without warmth.