Acculturation

 Acculturation is the process of adapting to new cultural norms. In ‘‘Daughter of Invention,’’ Alvarez uses her characters to show how that process can be exciting, confusing, and sometimes painful. Mami, Papi, and Yoyo each adjust differently to the new culture they encounter in the United States. Yoyo and Mami embrace American ways while Papi, dreaming of returning to his homeland, in many ways resists. For example, Mami speaks to her daughters in English, while Papi tries to insist that she speak in Spanish, ‘‘so they wouldn’st forget their native tongue.’’

 For immigrants, learning a new language is only a very small part of acculturation. Greetings, food, traditional holidays, and expressions that are taken for granted by natives can be confusing and disorienting to an immigrant. ‘‘Teacher’s Day,’’ something that Yoyo’s school apparently celebrates every year, has thrown her and her parents into confusion. Yoyo is selected to give a speech, and the Garcia family wonders: What is appropriate to say? What will honor the teachers and not alienate the students? Will she be able to speak properly? Will her accent be too strong? After much agonizing work, Yoyo finally succeeds in writing a speech that ‘‘finally sounded like herself in English!’’ She has not only been successful in learning the language, but she has also, readers are left to presume, challenged the authority of the teachers in a way that would have been unthinkable in the Dominican Republic. In this sense, Yoyo has become Americanized. Although her father rips up her speech, the ending of ‘‘Daughter of Invention’’ makes clear that she will continue to write in this almost defiant American voice.

 Like Yoyo, Laura—Mami—embraces American culture. She is fascinated with American gadgets and conveniences which are absent in the Dominican Republic. She wants to be a leader— an inventor who conceives of these American products. Her attempts to use American expressions— even though she confuses them—is further evidence of her eagerness and enthusiasm to become fully assimilated. She sees her adopted country as one full opportunity for herself and her daughters, in contrast to the repressive Dominican Republic, where she not only lived under a violent, oppressive government, but also lived within the confines of traditional gender expectations that kept her ‘‘only a wife and mother.’’ When Laura stands up to Papi, defending Yoyo’s bold speech, it seems to indicate that Laura is headed toward becoming an independent American woman.

 Papi is having the most difficulty acculturating to American society. He is entrenched in the ideas of his native country and cannot seem to grasp that things are different in the United States. He insists that the women in his family be subservient. He reads the Dominican newspapers and not the  New York Times , as Laura does. Once the dictatorship falls, he dreams of going back to the Dominican Republic. In the end, Papi’s gift to Yoyo of a typewriter that has many special features—an American gadget—is a hint that maybe Papi, too, will begin to adjust to the new culture.

 Authority and Individual Freedoms

 In ‘‘Daughter of Invention,’’ the Garcia family has fled their native Dominican Republic in order to escape persecution for even covertly challenging the government. Once in the United States, however, different members of the family develop different views on individual freedoms. Yoyo and Laura, the women in ‘‘Daughter of Invention,’’ soon embrace the new freedoms that American culture grants them to become more than, as Laura says, ‘‘only a wife and mother.’’ Yoyo, for example, begs to be allowed to freely travel into the city or to the mall, as American teenagers do. Laura dreams of making a fortune as an inventor of useful American gadgets. ‘‘Better an independent nobody than a highclass houseslave,’’ thinks Laura.

 Papi, on the other hand, has brought his family to New York City to escape the authoritarian, repressive dictatorship in the Dominican Republic. However, he had no intention of doing away with traditional ideas of authority that kept women subservient to men. He also found it impossible to shake off the fear that questioning authority would result in disappearances or worse.

 These conflicts come to a head when Yoyo writes her speech for ‘‘Teachers’ Day.’’ Yoyo feels inspired by Walt Whitman’s words praising the common man and woman and the power of the individual: ‘‘I celebrate myself and sing myself. . . . He most honors my style who learns under it to destroy the teacher.’’ Yoyo incorporates Whitman’s words into her speech, a celebration and an awakening of her own individual power. Laura, too, believes the speech is beautiful. However, Papi is outraged, calling the speech ‘‘insubordinate. . . . improper. . . . disrespecting.’’ When Yoyo and Laura protest, Papi fears that they were becoming ‘‘independent American women.’’ Ironically, Papi, who himself suffered under the repressive government of Trujillo, tears up the speech and chases Yoyo across the house when she calls him by Trujillo’s nickname. She has identified the crux of the problem: Papi still believes in authority figures who ruled absolutely, and did not yet embrace the idea that all individuals should have power and freedom.

Source:

Sara Constantakis – Short Stories for Students – Presenting Analysis, Context & Criticism on Commonly Studied Short Stories, vol. 31, Julia Alvarez, Published by Gale Group, 2010