Julia Alvarez is a highly regarded writer and winner of many awards and fellowships, including the PEN Oakland Award, a National Endowment for the Arts Grant, and a Yaddo residency, with novels named as American Library Association Notable and National B...

As Julia Alvarez stepped up to give a talk about her first novel, based on her Dominican family's immigration to the United States, a Dominican girl in the audience turned to her friend and said, "What she got to say to us? She's a white girl." Neverthel...

In her poetry and prose, Julia Alvarez (born 1950) has expressed her feelings about her immigration to the United States. She was born in New York City of Dominican parents, who returned to their native land with their newborn daughter. After her family'...

Starcevic is a critic and professor of Spanish. In the following review, she praises Alvarez's portrayal of the family in How the García Girls Lost Their Accents but faults her for not having "consistently developed voices."

Stavans is an American novelist and critic. In the following review, he calls How the Garcá Girls Lost Their Accents "a brilliant debut."

In the following review, Zappe offers a positive summation of How the García Girls Lost Their Accents, stating Alvarez "shows how the tensions of successes and failures don't have to tear families apart."