Clip: 09/17/2024 | 2m 5s | Video has closed captioning.
Julia Alvarez and her sisters recount the day they had to escape from the Dominican Republic with their parents, because of her father's involvement in a plot to overthrew the dictator, Rafael Trujillo. The experience inspired a scene in her first novel, "How the García Girls Lost Their Accents."
Aired: 09/17/24
(tense music) (doorbell rings) - [Narrator] The doorbell rings, and Chucha lets in these two creepy looking men.
They wear dark mirror glasses.
What catches Jojo's eyes are their holster belts and the shiny black bulge of their guns poking through.
Chucha talks very loud, and repeats what the men say as if she were deaf.
She must be wanting Papi to hear from wherever he's hiding.
Jojo wants to cry too, but she's sure if she does, the men will get suspicious and take her father away, and maybe the whole family.
- When did you hear that you were leaving?
Because I remember that all of a sudden you just disappeared.
- Yeah.
- I don't remember much.
Was like, they're gone.
- They couldn't tell us.
We weren't told.
And then we came home one day and... - They said pack your bags?
- No.
- Pack your bag.
(Julia speaking Spanish) Because that's where the new airport was remember?
- Yeah, yeah.
- And I thought, "Wait a minute, "we're being put in little dresses (thoughtful music) "and we're going to Boca Chica."
(thoughtful music) - Maury was 11, Julia was 10, Tita was nine, and I was five.
(thoughtful music) I remember mother was just trembling and the plane wasn't taking off.
There was a delay, there was a delay, there was a delay.
And the longer it delayed, the more afraid they would be coming.
- I remember the anxiety.
And when we got in the plane and the plane.
- Took off, take off.
- Took off.
Mami and Papi just hugged each other and cried and cried.
- There was for them a huge relief, and then, of course, a huge loss.
(thoughtful music) (logo snaps)
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