“Ni de aquí, ni de allá”: Memory, the Hyphen, and Julia Alvarez’s How the García Girls Lost Their Accents

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-104
Author(s):  
Daniel L. Archer
Keyword(s):  
Children Of Immigrants ◽  
American Identity ◽  
Linguistic Differences ◽  
Her Family ◽  
What Works ◽  
Self Discovery ◽  
Autobiographical Work ◽  
Different Cultures ◽  
Dominican American

Abstract One of the intellectual and emotional labors undertaken by children of immigrants is having to negotiate their place in between two different cultures. Existence in this in-between space is understandably challenging and is explored in Julia Alvarez’s How the García Girls Lost Their Accents, as the protagonist Yolanda and her sisters struggle to find themselves in between American and Dominican cultures. This article argues that memory plays a key role in navigating this space, as Alvarez constructs her semi-autobiographical work in reverse chronology, allowing Yolanda to work through the decision of where she believes she fits best using a series of flashbacks and memories from her own eyes and the eyes of other members of her family. While Marianne Hirsch theorizes that postmemory affects generations following those that experienced trauma, what Yolanda experiences differs. The trauma of navigating the “hyphen” of Dominican-American identity is her own, and it is through these memories, in addition to a focus on linguistic differences between English and Spanish that the girls struggle with, we follow Yolanda on her journey of self-discovery. What works such as Alvarez’s How the García Girls Lost Their Accents prove is that individuals have to find peace in an identity that is neither here nor there, ni de aquí ni de allá.

Figuring Out Children’s Number Representations

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
John N. Towse ◽  
Kevin Muldoon ◽  
Victoria Simms
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Difference ◽  
Number Line ◽  
Developmental Differences ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Place Value ◽  
Linguistic Differences ◽  
Number Representations ◽  
Mathematical Skill ◽  
Different Cultures

This chapter explores how numbers are represented amongst children in different cultures, and shows how this can enrich our understanding of mathematical cognition. It focuses on two specific, related topics: the representation of multi-digit numbers and the scaling of a mental number line. The authors consider whether linguistic differences in number structures directly influence children’s understanding of place value. They also consider whether cross-cultural and developmental differences in the quality of children’s mental representations of number are direct influences on mathematical skill. Together, these two topics allow us to consider evidence for the existence of cross-cultural difference in mathematics and investigate factors that might underlie them. The authors propose that whilst the interpretation of data needs to proceed cautiously, valuable insights can be gained from relevant research.

scholarly journals Volkswagen Blues: Rebirth through communication

SURG Journal ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 8-10
Author(s):  
Andrea Portt
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
San Francisco ◽  
Human Existence ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Cultural Backgrounds ◽  
Landing Point ◽  
Oregon Trail ◽  
Self Discovery ◽  
The Many ◽  
Different Cultures

Jacques Poulin’s novel Volkswagen Blues traces the author Jack Waterman’s journey of self-discovery from Jacques Cartier’s landing point in Gaspé, south down the oyageurs’ route via the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi, and finally est along the pioneers’ Oregon Trail to San Francisco. Throughout the trip, Jack encounters figures from the many different cultural backgrounds and periods that were important in the creation of today’s multicultural and plurilingual North America. The narrator uses a mixture of languages throughout the novel to emphasize these different cultures and eras, and to call attention to the importance of language to human existence and society. Jack finds self-reconciliation by accepting his connection to others through contact with these other cultures and languages.

Working with Families of Different Cultures II Improving our Communication Skills

2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-20
Author(s):  
Jeanette Panchula
Keyword(s):  
Communication Skills ◽  
Successful Outcome ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Her Family ◽  
Different Cultures

Working with families from different cultures requires self-awareness, the desire to understand the goals of our clients, and the ability to collaborate with them to achieve the outcome they are seeking. Primarily this is achieved through asking open-ended questions, listening not just to the words, but the feelings that are being communicated, sharing with her that what she has stated is understood, and then helping her identify an option that will work for her, her baby, and her family. Using this method maintains respect for the client’s beliefs and culture, and increases the likelihood of a successful outcome—and possibly creating a new breastfeeding expert and advocate in the process.

scholarly journals Una fuga all’insegna della ‘disponibilità culturale’

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Camilla Cattarulla
Keyword(s):  
Jewish Identity ◽  
Her Family ◽  
Autobiographical Texts ◽  
High Level ◽  
Different Cultures

Well known Hispanist and Hispano-America’s scholar, Lore Terracini (1925-1995), daughter of the mathematician Alessandro and nephew of the linguist Benvenuto Aron, lived in Argentina, more precisely in Tucumán, from 1939 to 1947. Her family, Israelite, had been forced to leave Italy because of the Racist Laws promulgated by Mussolini in 1938. In Tucumán, her father and her uncle got assignments at University, where they have been able to establish an intellectual atmosphere of high-level criticism. Their openness to exchange and meeting between different cultures influenced also their sons and daughters, marking them throughout their lifetime. Lore Terracini, in her autobiographical texts, points out that this cultural predisposition led to a process of integration, enough to feel belonging to a double motherland, the Italian and the Argentinian, without forgetting, especially in the last years of her life, the Jewish identity.

scholarly journals An In-Between Identity: Azouz Begag in Shantytown Kid

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (6) ◽  
pp. 118
Author(s):  
Radi Mohamed
Keyword(s):  
Identity Formation ◽  
Children Of Immigrants ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Language Varieties ◽  
Written Form ◽  
Different Cultures ◽  
The Voice ◽  
Azouz Begag ◽  
Language Issues ◽  
At Home

The main purpose of this study is to examine the double identity in Begag’s le Gone du Chaâba. Taken between two completely different cultures, the beur writer exploited the language to translate and transmit this duality. Le Gone du Chaâba is a 1986 novel by Azouz Begag, a French-born author of Algerian parentage, who offers an autobiographical glimpse of his childhood in and around Lyon. Set in the 1960’s, the novel presents Azouz navigating his experience between the slum where his family lives and the various French schools he attends. The text traces the issues of children of immigrants who essentially live between four language varieties: a cherished, formal Arabic, a version of Arabic or Berber spoken at home (rarely studied in written form), a “proper” French learned in school, and slang French spoken with friends. This study will explore the language issues as they appear in Begag’s le Gone du Chaâba, where they contribute to the process of identity formation for the child Azouz. In this novel the narrator presents himself as the voice of an individual who negotiates a place in an environment in the course of creation.

scholarly journals Portrety podwójne, 1939–1956. Wspomnienia polskich Żydówek z sowieckiej Rosji

2021 ◽  
pp. 491-533
Author(s):  
Magdalena Ruta
Keyword(s):  
Communist Regime ◽  
Jewish Women ◽  
Her Family ◽  
Sources Of Knowledge ◽  
Jewish Refugees ◽  
Autobiographical Texts ◽  
Red Army ◽  
Self Discovery ◽  
Soviet Russia ◽  
Simultaneous Identification

Double Portraits, 1939–1956: Memoirs of Polish Jewish Women From Soviet Russia During the first months following Germany’s attack on Poland, some members of the Jewish community managed to sneak away to the eastern frontiers of the country which had been invaded and annexed by the Red Army in the second half of September 1939. The tragic experiences of these refugees, heretofore somehow neglected by Holocaust scholars, have recently become the subject of profound academic reflection. One of the sources of knowledge about the fate of Jewish refugees from Poland are their memoirs. In this article the author reflects on three autobiographical texts written by Polish Jewish women, female refugees who survived the Holocaust thanks to their stay in Soviet Russia, namely Ola Watowa, Ruth Turkow Kaminska, and Sheyne-Miriam Broderzon. Each of them experienced not only the atrocities of war, but also, most of all, the cruelty of the Communist regime. All three of them suffered persecution by the oppressive Soviet authorities in different ways and at different times. While Ola Watowa experienced (in person, as well as through the fate of her family and friends) the bitter taste of persecution and deportation during WWII, Sheyne-Miriam Broderzon lived a relatively peaceful life in that period (1939–1945), and Ruth Turkow Kaminska even enjoyed the luxurious lifestyle reserved for the privileged members of the establishment, and it was not until the years immediately after the war that the latter two women would face the true image of Communism as its victims. The Wats managed to leave the USSR shortly after the war, whereas for the Broderzons and the Turkows the war would not end until the death of Stalin and their subsequent return to Poland in 1956. According to Mary G. Mason, the immanent feature of women’s autobiographical writings is the self-discovery of one’s own identity through the simultaneous identification of some ‘other.’ It is thanks to the rootedness of one’s own identity through the connection with a certain chosen ‘other’ that women authors can openly write about themselves. The aim of the article is to attempt to determine to what extent this statement remains true for the memoirs of the three Polish Jewish women who, besides sharing the aforementioned historical circumstances, are also linked by the fact that all of them lived in romantic relationships with outstanding artistic individuals (i.e. writers Aleksander Wat and Moyshe Broderzon, and jazzman Adi Rosner), which had an enormous impact not only on their lives in general, but also specifically on the creation and style of their autobiographical narrative, giving it the character of a sui generis double portrait.

scholarly journals THE IMAGE OF AN INDEPENDENT WOMAN (IN THE EXAMPLE OF CHARLOTTE BRONTE'S JANE EYRE AND RASHOD NURI'S CHOLI KUSHI)

2021 ◽  
Vol 02 (05) ◽  
pp. 91-95
Author(s):  
Saida Tashmuradovna Ismatova ◽  
◽  
Bakhtigul Ibodullayevna Sodikova ◽  
Barno Khushbokovna Elmirzayeva ◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Jane Eyre ◽  
The World ◽  
Autobiographical Work ◽  
Different Cultures

This article embodies the image of a strong independent woman, reflected in works from two different cultures, namely Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre and Rashod Nuri Gultegin’s Cholikushi. Both works are examples of autobiographical work. It reflects the path that Jane Eyre and Ferede have taken throughout their lives, how they can continue their lives without falling through hardships and obstacles, that is, the lives of women who have been able to restrain their patience and perseverance. Life never stops, it never stops. Happiness can be achieved only by overcoming the difficulties of life. Every woman has her own place in society and worldview. It is no exaggeration to say that these two works reflect the same two views. That is, women are the beauty of the world.

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