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 reasons for the differences between the two characterizations of Yolanda are that there is almost no continuity regarding her character in the two books, meaning that any specific details of Yolanda's life given to the reader in the first book are different (neither continued nor elaborated). on) in the following. It was almost like reading the story of two different characters who had the same family and immigrated to the United States from the Dominican Republic. For example, in the first book, Yolanda goes to college, becomes a teacher, and is only interested 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 get a college education, in fact, she almost doesn't get her bachelor's degree because she runs away with a young man named Darryl Dubois. She became a teacher, but she published mainly prose – short stories and novels – and not poetry. While the similarity between 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 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 heritage/history to future generations. Works Cited Primary Sources Alvarez, Julia. How the Garcia girls lost their accents. New York: Plume, 1991.- - - . !Yeah!. 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 Alvarez.” http://ahs.aps.edu/authorproject/juliaalvarez.html. Accessed 04/07/2001.