How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents

It's a long way from Santo Domingo to the Bronx, but if anyone can go the distance, it's the Garcia girls. Four lively Latinas plunged from a pampered life of privilege on an island compound into the big-city chaos of New York; they rebel against Mami and Papi's old-world discipline and embrace all that America has to offer. The girls have no difficulty "losing their accents" and, along with them, the customs and traditions of the old country. While during their first few months in New York they regularly pray to God that they will soon be able to return to their homeland, they quickly start appreciating the advantages of living in a "free country" so that even being sent back to the Dominican Republic for the summer becomes a form of punishment for them. For example, according to the "old rules," a teenage girl must not go out unchaperoned, but in the United States of the 1960s this is practically unheard of. Gradually, their parents give in to the way of life that surrounds them, especially after moving to a nice house in Long Island and realising that they will never go back to their native island for good again.