Julia Alvarez admits that her critically acclaimed novel How the Garda Girls Lost Their Accents is a semi-autobiographical account of her family as they struggled to adjust to American culture. Alvarez was born in New York City on March 27. 1950, but soon relocated to the Dominican Republic, where she lived until she was ten. While there, her father, like the novel's patriarch, was forced to flee with his family after he led a failed attempt to oust Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo. The family returned to the Bronx, in New York City, where her father started a successful medical practice. Like Yolanda, the main character in How the Garda Girls Lost Their Accents, Alvarez turned to books and writing as an escape from her frustrating acculturation experiences. In an interview with Catherine Wiley in Bloomsbury Review. Alvarez explains. "I think when I write, I write out of who...