The Daughter of Invention

When the Garcías arrive in America, they must decide how to relate to Spanish, their native language. Language—speaking it, writing it—is a primary way to articulate identity to others. Navigating bilingualism—in this case, speaking both Spanish and English—looks different for Carlos, Laura, and Yoyo in “Daughter of Invention.” The way each character makes decisions about their use of English or Spanish reveals the particular challenges they each face in inventing their identities in America.

Laura commits to speaking English, though “her English was a mishmash of mixed-up idioms and sayings that showed she was ‘green behind the ears,’ as she called it” (245). Her communication is a blend of English and Spanish, and when speaking in English, her communication is limited to sayings and idioms, as opposed to language she crafts herself. Additionally, her daughters often correct her mix-ups. Laura’s bilingualism reflects a sense of her being “in-between” Spanish and English and not quite clear in either. She remains connected to the traditions and values of their Dominican life while also eagerly exploring the possibilities of their life in America. Yoyo, on the other hand, finds authenticity and power in her use of English. When writing her poetry, she writes in English, indicating that even in the private parts of her identity, she uses the language of this new life. For Yoyo, mastering English is a thing of necessity: “She needed to settle somewhere, and since the natives were unfriendly, and the country inhospitable, she took root in the language” (245). Language becomes a tool to find success and notoriety, something so desired by her mother and ultimately achieved by Yoyo in her speech at school.

Carlos speaks primarily Spanish, which reflects the other ways he remains rooted in his native country. He reads Dominican newspapers and even imagines returning when he hears the Dominican Republic is having its first free elections. Carlos’s use of Spanish keeps him connected to his life in the Dominican Republic, but it also separates him from his daughters. When he recites his valedictorian speech to Yoyo as inspiration, none of the girls can understand him: “Yoyo and her sisters were forgetting a lot of their Spanish, and their father’s formal, florid diction was hard to understand” (245). This distance between Carlos and his daughters is perhaps not only one of language, as indicated in his tearing apart Yoyo’s speech. Yoyo’s original speech signifies something greater to her than just her success in English. After reading Walt Whitman and writing with a sense of freedom, Alvarez writes: “She finally sounded like herself in English!” (247). When Carlos tears that speech to bits, he is also rejecting new parts of Yoyo’s identity that he fears will put her in danger. Yoyo and Laura insist that the dangers he fears are those he still holds onto from their old lives, demonstrating the way diaspora identities can be divided from each other.