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La Gringuita

Julia Alvarez

Julia Alvarez (b. 1950) was born in New York but raised in the
Dominican Republic until she was ten, her family fleeing to the central text
United States after her father became involved in an unsuccessful
plot to overthrow the dictator Rafael Trujillo. She received a BA Jeff Malet Photography/Newscom
from Middlebury College and an MA from Syracuse University.
Alvarez has published poetry, fiction, memoir, and children’s books.
“La Gringuita” is from a collection of autobiographical essays,
Something to Declare (1998), in which the author examines identity
and the art of writing.

1
he inevitable, of course, has happened. I and chew on her ear. My mother gave him an
Tnow speak my native language “with an indignant look, stood up, and went in search
2
accent.” What I mean by this is that I speak of the conductor to report this fresh man.
perfect childhood Spanish, but if I stray into Decades later, hearing the story, my father, ever
a heated discussion or complex explanation, vigilant and jealous of his wife and daughters,
I have to ask, “Por favor ¿puedo decirlo en was convinced — no matter what my mother
ingles?” Can I please say it in English? said about idiomatic expressions — that the
How and why did this happen? sailor had made an advance. He, himself, was
When we emigrated to the United States in never comfortable in English. In fact, if there
the early sixties, the climate was not favorable were phone calls to be made to billing offices,
for retaining our Spanish. I remember one scene medical supply stores, Workman’s Compen-
in a grocery store soon after we arrived. An sation, my father would put my mother on the
elderly shopper, overhearing my mother speak- phone. She would get better results than he
ing Spanish to her daughters, muttered that if we would with his heavy, almost incomprehensi-
wanted to be in this country, we should learn the ble accent.
language. “I do know the language,” my mother At school, there were several incidents of 5
said in her boarding-school English, putting name-calling and stone-throwing, which our
the woman in her place. She knew the value of teachers claimed would stop if my sisters and I
speaking perfect English. She had studied for joined in with the other kids and quit congre-
several years at Abbot Academy, flying up from gating together at recess and jabbering away in
the Island to New York City, and then taking the Spanish. Those were the days before bilingual
train up to Boston. It was during the war, and education or multicultural studies, when kids
the train would sometimes fill with servicemen,
every seat taken.
1 Chew on her ear: the idiom “chew someone’s ear off” means to talk
One time, a young sailor asked my mother
to someone for a long time and in a boring manner. —Eds.
if he could sit in the empty seat beside her 2 Fresh: lewd, disrespectful. —Eds.

Uncorrected proofs have been used in this sample. 177
Copyright © Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers.
Distributed by Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers.
For review purposes only. Not for redistribution.

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