Summary of I Want to be Miss America by Julia Alvarez

            Summary of "I Want to be Miss America" by Julia Alvarez.
             Moving from the Dominican Republic to the United States can be a hard enough change to deal with, but for Julia Alvarez and her three sisters coming to a new country and actually fitting in proved to be a much harder task. After watching the Miss America beauty pageant on television with their father every year, Julia and her sisters longed to be like the American girls in the pageant. The sisters all wanted to fit in but with their short, frizzy hair and olive color skin they felt they needed to make some changes. The Miss America pageant gave them ideas of how to be acknowledged as an American. American girls had freedom as well as the blonde hair, blue eyes, leggy figures and the peaches and cream skin. Not only did the sisters long to achieve the looks of the American girls but they wanted the freedom of choice as well. They were born into a culture that groomed girls not to have any aspirations other than being a good wife and mother. Later America's fashion changed and it was suddenly hip to be ethnic and different. Everyone wanted to be like Julia and her sisters, but it was too late. The damage to Julia's self-esteem was already done and she had begun to doubt whether she would ever fit in anywhere. .