Northern Essex Community College has begun the year with an appreciative and beneficial event, “Literature, Legacy, Community. An Evening with Julia Alvarez.” Sponsored by the White Fund and hosted by NECC’s Vice President Naydeen Gonzalez-De Jesus along with some staff members, the event took place on the Lawrence Campus during the evening of Oct. 2, where special guest Julia Alvarez was welcomed into the NECC community. Alvarez, who is a Dominican American writer and poet, has reached many people through her writing. She is known for her talent and success in writing books of both fiction and non-fiction. Even more honored she is the “voice” that the immigrant community has long fallen short to have.
Each guest, including the staff and students, had the opportunity to meet Alvarez in person, ask her questions, hear what she had to say as well as her own advice, and get her autograph on their copy of her book.
Local guests from outside the NECC community like the Lawrence community and other local communities were happy to be there as they honored her with much applause and cherishing love and support, recognizing her the one whom many look to as one of the “heroes” of the immigrant community, one of few who has taken a stand to speak up and because of it, the world hears and understands the immigrant community better.
Among the many guests honored to have Alvarez was the first Dominican American Massachusetts State Sen. Pavel Payano who shared with the audience his childhood memories on reading “How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accents” and how the three Garcia Girls stories resemble his parents’ experiences as he stated the words, “Their story was similar to my father’s story.” The Senator further expressed his gratitude to Alvarez as being one of the people who not only helped the immigrant community but he thinks of her as a close relative to him, who has helped make him who he is today. He showed this by awarding Alvarez with a Senator’s Citation of recognition for her devoted service and contribution to society.
His final words to her in his speech, “Thank you so much for coming! Know that you have family here.”
During the interview, NECC’s Vice President Naydeen Gonzalez-De Jesus presented some interesting questions to lvarez such as, “When was the first time when you decided to put your thoughts into writing?” where Alvarez replied, “When I was 10 and I was not the kid that you would think would become a writer. Kids love to hear this; I flunked every grade through fifth grade. I was a terrible student; I had go to summer school, if I went to summer school they would pass me to the next grade because they would send notes home saying ‘Julia does not pay attention,’ I was bored it was during the dictatorship of Trujillo, the books were boring, they were propaganda, I was bored, you know the teaching was very punitive and memorization and parroting back what the teacher told you, and I, I just.. I think I was smart. I was bored. But the minute I got home, one of the tia’s or prima’s said “come here let me tell you a story” I would sit right there listening, listening. I had no trouble paying attention, I had trouble being bored. So, I was not a bookish kid. I was not a writer. I didn’t look like I was going to be scholarly material at all …. it took going to graduate school, I became a writer because I was lonely, I was an outcast, the kids weren’t very nice to me.
“And so, I had a very good teacher who got me started in reading. I started reading and I discovered that in the world of imagination, everyone was welcome.
“So, I wanted to be in that world, so I became a reader first. When you read, when you’re a reader, you realize that there’s some stories missing from the books that you’re reading … The stories only you can tell.
“So, I wanted then to become a writer. I realized in graduate school that everything I was being taught by my teachers about timing, about humor, about character, about how to keep a tory moving, I learned in childhood about people, some of them didn’t know how to read and write but they could tell you a story. It was amazing.
“So, I became proud of that oral culture that was the root system of my story telling.”
“I listened to Tia Melia, Lala, and all who had told me stories,” said. Alvarez.
“And now we’re reading you,” replied Gonzalez-De Jesus.
“Who me?” Alvarez replied.
“It’s a transition, you know, because of them, I’m here, and because of me maybe there’s going be something to writers because they’ve read Garcia girls and say,
“This can be me, you know I can be a writer too.””
Another important question Gonzalez-De Jesus asked Alvarez was, “What is real and what is not real when you’re writing what you are trying to communicate to the reader?”, where Alvarez replied, “I guess you know, I’m always transgressive when I’m shown a border, um, I want to cross over, I want to bridge it. And so, the real and the unreal really I mean some things that you hear you can’t make that stuff up, it’s so weird you know. And so, I think that we all live in a world in which there’s a, It’s not a dividing line that you cross that you can measure quantities and especially us Dominicans, I mean we have stories and we have people see things and um you know, and they believe them and I believe them. I think that the world of you know what we call unreal, its all around us. -I used to tell my father, “Magical realism.”
When Alvarez was asked what Dominican history influenced her, she replied, “I wanted to understand, make meaning of what I and my sisters went through with immigration. I was interested in the stories of my parents’ time, in the lost generation. It was a generation that couldn’t speak. Like what it was to grow up with the fear inside a female body. Trujillo had siege over any woman. It’s that silence that interests me. It’s not a silence, it’s a silenced person who feels that they are not worth anything. That part that I had to keep silent, it went on paper.”
More advising words from Alvarez to the audience were, “Part of what I love about writing is that I get to disappear, I become my characters, I meditate. This is why I recommend reading. It is the most activist thing you can do. When you read, you become someone else and it’s powerful, the muscles of compassion get stretched.”
When guests had a chance to ask Julia Alvarez questions, one guest asked, “Should we be worried for the magical fear?”
Alvarez responded, “I think those of us who afford to be brave cannot shut up.” She went further on to say, “Those of us who can speak up need to take care of the others who can’t speak up.”
As the evening was heading to an end, Dr. Naydeen Gonzalez-De Jesus asked Mrs. Alvarez, “The person, the writer, what would you like to be remembered by?
Alvarez responded, “My work, that’s what I like to do.”
Gonzalez-De Jesus then recited, “So, known by your resilience and your determination.”
Inevitably, all the guests including Northern Essex staff and students were touched by Alvarez words which surely reached everyone’s heart. The night became an inspiring one, an empowering one, and certainly a memorable one.
