the morning it is sunda april 9th. donald trump s arraignment las tuesday was a singular momen in american history. never before has an american president been charged i connection with the crime. but the manhattan district attorney s criminal charge against trump barely scratch the surface of the legal troubles that he is facing it s not even the only pending case involving him in new york this week trump is expecte back in new york for a deposition related to a civi suit filed for the new yor state attorney general letitia james. last september, she filed a 25 dollar lawsuit against trump his three eldest - accusing them of fraudulen business practices 60 days from now, a trial is - in one of the two civi lawsuits filed against donal trump by the author an columnist e. jean carroll. a few years ago carole published a book in which sh accused trump of raping her in a dressing room in a luxur department store back in the mid 1990s. trump denied these accusations say they ve
the early 1990s. one attempted banned by parent in a johnston count north carolina school prompted the national coalition against censorship which is a nonprofi the defense freedom of fre expression, to post a letter arguing in favor of keeping th book on library shelves. running in, part quote, th sexual content and themes an how the garcia girls lost thei accents represents essential parts of the novel consistent with the kind o material that high schoo students frequently read if students were precluded fro reading literature which sexua content they would be deprived of exposure to vast amounts of important material, includin shakespeare. major religious tech such as the bible, the works of tolsto and flaubert and joyce and quote. i could read this letter for any number of, books by the way, that we feature on the velsh banned book club we see time and time again tha books portraying female sexual agency or sexual assault d entirely different in a very real experiences are so ofte
deemed unacceptable, inappropriate, and then take off shelves. but to condemn a book that has so much to offer any reader, and one that shows with th american dream truly looks like, depicts what it means to be an immigrant and part of a family and to grow up as a woman, jus because it might fee uncomfortable for some readers that is just wrong no one is protected when books like how the garcia girls lost their accents gets banned. i am joined now by julia alvarez, they were subpoenae the national medal of arts fro then president barack obama, and author of today s velshi banned book club, how th garcia girls lost thei accents. welcome, julia thank you for joining us thank, you ali. so much. and for that introduction, you make me want to read the book! that s the, point we want everybody to that let s start with chapte one. yolanda visits the dominican republic and tries to reclai her roots. she gets a flat tire while gathering guava s in the
garcias girls own instabilit and impermanence throughout th book although each of the stories focuses on one of the four granddaughters, with the garci family as a whole, yolanda leave her daughter i ultimately the central focus and is our protectionist in a matter of pages, th garcia girls go from praying for their swift return to th dominican republic to bein sense there as punishment fo being rebellious teenagers here, alvarez flawlessly interweaves the tensions between the american teenage and her parents with accomplic tensions between a dominican american teenager in her immigrant parents. part coming of age story, part historical fiction how the garcia girls lost thei accents explores themes of identity, assimilation famil and memory it is an immigrant story and i also deals with both women s sexual awakening, and sexual assault. with a gentle nuance and frank real-ism those two themes have led to numerous calls for a removal since the books publication in
own younger selves i want to read a small part of a new york times review from back in 2018 quote, i must have rea hundreds of books but i neve encountered any character like me dominican, nerdy, an immigrant whose first language was spanish. by the time i found alvarez debut novel, how the garci girls lost their accents, i ve already resigned myself to using books as windows rathe than mirrors and quote. i think that is really powerful their keys after publishin this book in 1991, your writin still is to some people th first representation that they will find of themselves. mirror, not window what a beautiful i have to steal that a window, a mirror not a window that is so heartening. i wish it weren t so but you are doing the job of keeping those books up there so there will be those books available that are pulled of the shelves.