The Other Side / El otro lado

I found this collection of poetry to be an honest portrait of the poet's experiences. The novelist Julia Alvarez, author of "How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents", "Yo", and "In the Time of the Butterflies", displays her wide range of poetry in this book, The Other Side/ El Otro Lado. It is divided into four main sections, each with their own topic, and each section has poems about that topic within it. The first section deals with the poet's childhood, as she lived in the Dominican Republic. Then the book moves on to deal with other topics such as her family's hurried getaway to the United States, and her awkward adolescent years, as she tried to adjust as a minority Latina in a world of gringas. The book moves on to her adulthood and encompasses topics which vary from her poetry readings to her boyfriends. Especially touching are the poems which speak about her return visit to her homeland of Dominican Republic, the point at which Julia realizes that she does not fit in here anymore any better than she fit in at her school when she first arrived in the US. This book is a tale of one woman's journey from immigrant to American citizen, and it expressed with the deepest and sincere sense of humanity. Her unique story-telling style of poetry makes this book unique, and her experiences will warm your heart.
October 05, 2000