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In speaking to local middle and high school students this past week, noted Dominican author Julia Alvarez took on the personality of “Tía Lola,” the protagonist of her young adult series. “Books were like tías and tíos—storytellers,” said Alvarez.
Story and photos by Sherry Mazzocchi
Video by Sherry Mazzocchi
An idea as a pebble.
A bothersome, wonderful pebble pressing into the sole of your foot, not to be easily discarded.
So said Julia Alvarez, as she explained how an idea for a story can be likened to the proverbial pebble in your shoe.
“You can’t shake it out. You keep thinking about it,” she said. “That’s the seed where the book comes from.”
Alvarez’s own pebbles, or ideas, have given way to poetry, nonfiction, children’s books and novels such as In the Time of the Butterflies and How the García Girls Lost Their Accents. And this past Mon, Oct. 17th, Alvarez came to Washington Heights to speak about her Dominican childhood and its profound impact on her work, as presented by the Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance (NoMAA), the Asociación Comunitaria de Dominicanos Progresistas (ACDP), and the Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz Educational and Memorial Center.
The author gave two talks; one in the afternoon to local middle and high school students, and another in the evening to a crowd of mostly adults from both Washington Heights and the Bronx.
NoMAA’s Executive Director Sandra García-Betancourt introduced Alvarez as one of the most significant Latina writers of our time.
Alvarez explained that she knew she would become a writer after realizing there were stories only she could tell. In her first novel, How the García Girls Lost Their Accents, four sisters from the Dominican Republic learn to survive, and then thrive, in New York. In The Time of the Butterflies is based on the true story of the four Mirabal sisters—three of whom were brutally murdered during the Trujillo era. Even the Tía Lola series features four sisters. No surprise, then, that Alvarez is one of four sisters.
“I never knew the meaning of a nuclear family,” she said.
She was born in New York at New York Presbyterian Hospital, across the street from the Shabazz Center. But her parents missed their family and soon returned to the Dominican Republic with their new baby.
Her father was the youngest of 25 children. “I had a big, huge, crazy familia,” she said proudly, showing slide after slide of her tías and tíos. She pointed out the tío who had a glass eye, but the children never knew which eye was which. A favorite tía’s beauty mark grew in a different spot every day. Another tía only wore purple and slept in a coffin. Alvarez and her cousins would sneak to play, revealing its purple satin insides.
In the Dominican Republic, Alvarez grew up without knowing about Trujillo. The large family shielded children from his brutal regime. When an uncle suddenly disappeared, no one talked about it. Occasionally, it slipped out that a man was in hiding and living in a tía’s closet. But nothing more.
When the Dominican government became interested in her father’s political activities, the family quickly moved back to New York. At age 10 and separated from most of her extended family, part of herself was missing. Worse still, there weren’t many Dominicans in New York in the 1960s. Other children spit at her and called her a spic. “It was a different world than what we find now,” she said.
At school, her mind wandered and her grades slipped.
It was a teacher who changed her life. “Teachers see inside you,” Alvarez said. “Where there is just a seed, they can see the flower—a possibility.”
That teacher showed her books offer a world where everyone is welcome and tell amazing stories. “She convinced me that books were like tías and tíos—storytellers,” Alvarez said.
And it proved a world where she suddenly belonged. Her favorite authors – Emily Dickinson, Jane Austen and George Elliot – lifted the print off of the pages, inviting her inside.
Still, something was missing.
“There was one story I wasn’t reading,” she said. “It was the one that only I could tell.” When she began writing, Alvarez explained, everything she had lost came back.
“My writing process is really messy,” she said. “The purple lady, the glass eye, the person in the closet. All these little pieces. You have to figure it out.”
Alvarez said her writing is like weaving a rug and finding the true pattern.
At the end of the evening, an audience member, a woman from the Bronx spoke to Alvarez. “I am so glad that you came back and you that are proud of where you came from.”
In response, Alvarez thanked her and noted everyone has talents. “Everybody has a gift,” she said. “The challenge is how to develop it.”
To listen to Julia Alvarez speak about her process, Little Women, and the minimum wage, please visit http://bit.ly/MT_008.
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