The character of Yolanda Garcia in How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents and !Yo!Julia Alvarez develops the character of Yolanda Garcia in different and similar ways in her two books How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents and its sequel !Yo!. The reason for the differences in the two characterizations of Yolanda is that there is almost no continuity regarding her character in the two books, meaning that all the specific details of Yolanda's life given to the reader in the first book are different (not continued nor processed). above) below. It was almost like reading about two different characters who had the same family and who had immigrated to the United States from the Dominican Republic. For example, in the first book Yolanda goes to graduate school, becomes a teacher, and only shows interest in writing poetry. She also marries a man named John after falling in love with a young man named Rudy in college. In the second book, Yolanda doesn't attend graduate school, in fact, she almost doesn't get her degree because she runs away with a young man named Darryl Dubois. He becomes a teacher, but mainly publishes prose, short stories and novels, not poetry. Whereas, the similarity in the two different characterizations of Yolanda is that she is definitely assimilated into American culture, but her Old World values ​​and lifestyle also influence her. In both books it is clear that Yolanda has successfully assimilated into American culture. Unlike her parents, first-generation immigrants, who never fully mastered the English language, Yolanda mastered the language and excelled in school. In the second book, one of her college professors has f...... middle of paper ...... Old World roots and that her traditional values ​​still have a significant impact on her. Yolanda must continually reconnect with her Old World roots to fulfill her destiny of passing on her family's legacy/history to future generations. Works Cited Primary Sources Alvarez, Julia. How the Garcia girls lost their accent. New York: Plume, 1991.- - - . !Yo!. New York: Plume, 1997. Secondary Sources Alvarez, Julia. Something to declare: essays. New York: Plume, 1998. Barak, Julie. “‘Turning and Turning in the Widening Gyre’: A Second Entry into Language in Julia Alvarez’s How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents,” MELUS Spring (1998), http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m2278/1_23 / 53501904/print.jhtml. Accessed 04/07/2001. The author's project. "Julia Álvarez." http://ahs.aps.edu/authorproject/juliaalvarez.html. Logged in 04/07/2001.