Julia Alvarez was born like any other child in America, in a hospital with her family. However, this was not an average family, nor would she grow up to be an average person. When she came into the world on March 27, 1950, in the busy atmosphere of New York City, few realized that one of the most prolific Latino writers to grace America was being born.
Her mother and father both came from the Dominican Republic-they met in school. Soon after her birth, they returned to the Dominican Republic because they preferred the lifestyle there and wanted to be nearer to their family. Things went very well in the Dominican Republic for a while. She attended an American school, in which she learned to be American. Here she studied in English, ate American foods, and played American games. Julia liked this very much, because she considered herself to be a fully American girl. However, things would not go well for long.
Julia’s father was involved in the underground movement opposing Trujillo, the dictator at that time. He was discovered to be part of a failed coup, and they were forced to flee the country in 1960, 3 months before the leaders of that movement, the Mirabal sisters, were assassinated. And so Julia found herself an American girl, returning to her homeland.
Things were very different for the family in New York. While they had had plenty of room in the Dominican Republic, here they all had to squeeze into a tiny apartment. Julia thought she would be well prepared for her school, having spoken English every day in her old school, but she soon discovered that conversational English was much different from the polite English spoken in her classroom back home. Her classmates called her a lot of mean things, and didn’t treat her very well at all. Eventually she graduated from her high school, and went on to college.
Julia went to Conneticutt College for her undergraduate work starting 1967 and going on until 1969. She then went on to Middlebury College to receive her Bachelor of Arts, graduating Summa Cum Laude in 1971. She received her Masters in Creative Writing from Syracuse University, which she attended between the years of 1973 and 1975. She also attended the Bread Loaf School of English, where she completed three graduate courses towards a Masters in English and American Literature in the summer of 1979 and the year of 1980.
She has also had a wide and successful career, working in almost every position and author and Literature major can hold. She has been a Writer-in-Residence in states Kentucky, Delaware, North Carolina, and Vermont. She has also been an English instructor at California State College and Philips Andover Academy, a private boarding school in Massachusetts, as well as a Professor of the English Department at Middlebury College. Topping the list of her accomplishments is the job she held as a Jenny McKean Moore Visiting Writer at George Washington University, a one-year fellowship given after the winning of a nation-wide competition. She has also judged numerous literary competitions, and is an honorary co-chair of the American Library Association.
Her works include both poetry and prose, for adults and children. Some of her more famous novels are How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, In the Time of the Butterflies, and Once Upon a Quinceañera: Coming of Age in the USA.
Julia Alvarez currently lives in Champlain, Vermont with her husband, Bill Eichner. They own 11 acres on which they farm and raise animals. She continues to write novels. She and her husband have also bought some land in the Dominican Republic, which they use to run a sustainable farm-literacy center called Alta Gracia. On this farm they grow coffee, practicing sustainable farming methods to keep the soil rich and fresh. They then sell the coffee back in the United States and give the profits to those who work the land. Julia visits the Dominican Republic every year at least five or six times, to visit both her family, who still lives down there, and to check on Alta Gracia.
Bibliography
"Julia Alvarez - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 July 2010. .
"Julia Alvarez : Voices From the Gaps : University of Minnesota." Voices From the Gaps : University of Minnesota. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 July 2010. .
"Julia Alvarez: official author website." Julia Alvarez: official author website. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 July 2010. .
