Haunted by her past, Julia Alvarez has portrayed her immigrant experience as both painful and ambiguous. Her love of language and need to understand it has molded her life as an English professor and acclaimed author (Contemporary 1). However, a chronological study of several of her works exposes a disturbing path in her writing. Homecoming, Alvarez's first publication, is a collection of poems that barely even hint that she is in fact Hispanic. The publication has only one poem that hints of color and only one Spanish word. The Other Side / El Otro Lado, her latest collection of poetry, is imbued with unnecessary Spanish catchphrases and words in a sordid attempt to use her Hispanic heritage like a banner in a morality play. Alvarez's ever-evolving attitude and seeming confusion, so very evident in her poetry, fiction, articles, and interviews is painful to witness.
Born in New York City, Julia Alvarez's family moved back to the Dominican Republic a few weeks later. She lived there until the age of ten. In 1960, her father's involvement with the attempted overthrow of the hated dictator Rafael Trujillo forced the family to emigrate. (He would later serve as the antagonizing factor in How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent and the murderous protagonist in Las Mariposas.) Settling in the Bronx, Alvarez's father set up a private medical practice to support the family. During her pubescent years, it was a sense of alienation that first prompted a love of writing. An English professor at Middlebury College in Vermont, the publishing of a collection of poetry, Homecoming, brought the first taste of success in 1984 to Alvarez (Contemporary 1).
"[Homecoming] is very much about finding a voice as a woman. That was the primary thing that I was addressing," Alvarez admitted to Catherine Wiley in an interview. A charming story follows, explaining that the first section of the book was useful in overcoming writer's block.