Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Does Julia Alvarez ever tire of being classified as “a Latina writer”? The author of the novel How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents (Chapel Hill, N.C.: Algonquin Books, 1991) says she’s proud to be part of a chorus of multicultural voices in America, though she adds it’s “sometimes not so much a chorus but a shouting match.” In her early work, she felt pressure to translate the events of her life into American experiences. “I thought that’s what you had to do…. I was pre-multicultural,” Alvarez says.

Alvarez’s Dominican roots are at the heart of her latest novel, ¡Yo! (Algonquin, 1997), which revisits the life of Yolanda, one of her celebrated Garcia girls.

Mother Jones asked Alvarez what music and literature she’s enjoyed lately. Here’s what she had to say about Grandes Exitos de Juan Luis Guerra (Karen Publishing, 1996), “radical merengue” from Guerra and the Dominican group 4 40:

“They’ve taken merengue, our traditional kind of music, but they’ve made it kind of contemporary and politicized it. It ends up being a very powerful statement about poverty in the countryside.”

Also recommended by Alvarez:

DrownDrown (New York: Riverhead Books, 1996) by Dominican author Junot Díaz. “The collection is Díaz’s first. He’s really part of the next wave, the next generation coming up of such powerful writers. For me, to hear the Dominican rhythms and street talk in English was wonderful.”

Elizabeth Bishop--Complete PoemsComplete Poems: 1927-1979 (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1990) by Elizabeth Bishop. “I love how she’s able to write in form, with such control and yet such a wonderful, casual, observing voice. Bishop lived in Brazil for over 20 years. She’s got this mixed vision of her experience in Brazil with an American sensibility that is wonderful.”

BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And the essential ingredient that makes all this possible? Readers like you.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to devote the time and resources to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And the essential ingredient that makes all this possible? Readers like you.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to devote the time and resources to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate