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Pink, a traditionally feminine color, represents the power of female sexuality to prevail over oppressive patriarchy. Laura assigns each of her four daughters a color to dress in through their childhoods. Pink is Yolanda’s color, but as Sofia grows up she becomes jealous and tries to claim pink as her color instead. This reflects Yolanda’s life-long battle to be comfortable with and assert her sexuality, contrasted with Sofia’s bold and natural embrace of her sexuality. Sofia is drawn to lust and romance in adulthood just as she is attracted to the color pink in childhood. As a kid, Yolanda must fight to keep pink as her color, just as she later struggles to express her sexuality in the face of men who oppress, violate, and abuse her.
When the sisters are in their late teens and early 20s, they all identify as feminists. During this time, the three older girls stage a coup to save Sofia from being forced to marry her controlling and misogynistic boyfriend. Their meeting takes place on the same street where the Dominican dictator was recently ambushed, which links their goal to that of the Dominican revolutionaries—Sofia must break free from oppressive patriarchy just as the Dominican people overthrew an oppressive dictatorship. As the girls plan to free their sister, they wave a pink towel as a flag and yell “Que viva la revolución!” The towel’s color signifies that it is a feminist revolution. The plan is successful, indicating that women have the power to express their sexuality freely despite a patriarchal society’s oppression.
Pink Quotes in How the García Girls Lost Their Accents
The How the García Girls Lost Their Accents quotes below all refer to the symbol of Pink. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
6. A Regular Revolution Quotes
There, among the pink vanities with baskets of little towels and talcum powder and brushes, we come up with our plot. We reach out our hands and seal our pact. Yoyo rallies us with “¡Que viva la revolución!”
Related Characters:
Carla García (speaker), Sandra García (speaker), Yolanda García (speaker), Sofia García (speaker), Manuel
Related Symbols:
Pink
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
125
Explanation and Analysis:
The three older sisters form a plan to save Sofia from the abusive relationship she is in with their cousin Manuel. This chapter explicitly links the feminist revolution to the Dominican political revolution. Whereas the Dominican revolutionaries fight for freedom from their militant dictator, the girls fight for women’s rights. Sofia is the most naturally independent sister, and she ends up being the most sexually liberated one later on, so the fact that she concedes to Manuel’s dominance shows how powerful patriarchal culture is in the Dominican Republic. Yolanda’s enthusiastic participation in this girls’ coup shows that she strongly believes in feminism and sexual liberation too, even though she is hesitant to express her own sexuality.
Pink is an important color in the novel because it represents the feminist movement. The sisters formulate their plan “among the pink vanities,” and later on, Sandra waves one of the pink bathroom towels as a flag. The makeshift flag is a symbol for the feminist revolution.
12. The Human Body Quotes
In a corner, hoses lay coiled like a family of dormant snakes. Fifi and I lined up against a far wall. Mundín faced us, his hands nervously working the snake into a rounder and rounder ball. “Go on,” he said. “Take them down.”
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
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Pink Symbol Timeline in How the García Girls Lost Their Accents
The timeline below shows where the symbol Pink appears in How the García Girls Lost Their Accents. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
3. The Four Girls
...clothing so that each girl always wears the same color. Sofia wears white, Yolanda wears pink, Sandra wears blue, and Carla wears yellow. Yolanda is happy because pink is a girly...
(full context)
6. A Regular Revolution
...go to a bar bathroom to formulate a plan to save Sofia. Sandra waves a pink hand towel like a flag.
(full context)
12. The Human Body
...is a boy, but it doesn’t have a “peeer.” Mundín also gets a ball of pink clay from their grandmother, and Yolanda is jealous of that, too. She tells Mundín she...
(full context)
