My American Girls is a documentary surrounding the Ortiz family, first generation immigrants, who is hardworking, dedicated, and striving for success and pursuing the American dream. This movie documents the challenges they face in difficulties they face. However, it also shows how their surroundings, the community, plays an important factor in becoming who they are, especially their daughters. From being born in America, they are caught between parent’s values and their own. This is where the film shows the contrasts of being American but still living up to the immigrant values of their parents.

Being born in America, there are many things that distinguish you from your parents and the things you believe in. This is also the example for the Ortiz daughters. As they look on a different path to becoming something in life, there are many complications in reaching that successful platform. Having immigrant parents, it is very difficult for them to receive the proper education they need. Most of the complications that front the Ortiz daughters are social complications. Whether it is education and studying or hanging out with friends, they first set forward to know people and to “socialize” more with others rather than study. My mom, being a math teacher, has had a great amount of experience with connecting to kids who are new to the country and have first-year immigrants in the US. It is a difficult task for not just the parents but for their kids to adapt and to set themselves in the right direction. That is where the community needs to play a vital role.

On the other hand, it is maintaining the values of their family. Living in a community of Puerto Ricans/Dominicans, there is a sense of comfortability among the Ortiz daughters. Having the sense of religious unity is key that at least they have someone/something with them. Other than that, they don’t have much. They are left to explore their community and expand their knowledge. Through that, each of the daughters become different and develops their own characteristics. The community plays a vital role in shaping each of the daughters and motivates them to work hard but also to explore what is out there and see what they can do with that is out there.

In My American Girls, we see an up close account of what life is like for the Ortiz family, a Dominican family that now lives in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. The Ortiz home is overrun with family members and friends who are constantly coming and going. In the street, all of the kids on the block come out to play with each other. There is a strong sense of community that exists between the Dominicans of this neighborhood that extends beyond direct familial relationships. The entire community, especially those who weren’t born here, is struggling to find work, to make a living, to get an education, and to learn English. This community, which exists separately from other communities in Sunset Park (such as the Asian community), has both its advantages and disadvantages for the Ortiz family.

Coming together as a community creates a huge sense of comfort for the Ortiz family, especially for the elders. They help each other to learn about life in the U.S., to immigrate here, and to find work here. In the film, for example, we see the mother teaching an English phrase to one of her many family members. Learning from family is probably less intimidating than learning from strangers. Once they get adjusted to life here, they’re able to send money back to their poor families at home in the D.R. Besides for these practical reasons, they also get to hold on to memories of home by constantly sharing them with each other. They strongly hold onto their culture and their traditions while they are living here. This perhaps relieves the scary fact that they are living in a completely alien land.

While the benefits of living in a close knit Dominican community are real, there are also setbacks, especially those that affect the Ortiz daughters. We constantly see the middle daughter struggling with school, and one of the reasons is because neither of her parents can help her with her work. Generally, the large amount of family members and friends that are constantly around makes for a huge distraction. The younger daughters would rather socialize within their community than study. They’ve even complained several times that they’d rather move back to the D.R. and stay there. This was the opposite for the oldest daughter, who worked extremely hard to study and do well in school. She graduated from a prestigious university, but she still finds herself being held back in some ways by the demands of her family and the community. There is a feeling that she could be more successful of she could severe her ties with her family and her community. For the daughters especially, we see the members of this community stuck in an awkward place that is somewhere between belonging to the U.S. and belonging to the D.R. As long as they are in limbo like this, they can never go very far in either direction.

The film, My American Girls, accurately depicts the lifestyle of immigrant parents as they struggle to “make it” in America. It was hard not to notice the obvious gap between Mrs. Ortiz and her “American” girls. Monica, Mrs. Ortiz’s oldest daughter, is probably the most “American” out of all of her siblings. Although she can communicate well with her parents and is accustomed to the Dominican culture, Monica states that she never really hung out with the Dominican “crowd”. When she was at home, she only focused on her schoolwork and rarely interacted with other Dominican kids of her age. After spending most of her school years in a private school, she attended Columbia University and once again, she became surrounded by completely different individuals. It is interesting that although Monica’s family is not very wealthy, they were still able to afford Monica’s private school education. Also, Monica, like many other first generation immigrants kids, aspires to achieve that “American dream”. Out of everyone in her family, she is the only one who seems to have a better chance of “making it”. In my opinion, Monica manages to strike a perfect balance between her “American” life and her “Dominican” by still maintaining her relationship with her “white” boyfriend, her job, and the close connections with her very much Dominican family. Just like how Mrs. Ortiz struggles to provide for her family, Monica too is struggling so that in the future, she can support her parents.

Aida, who considers herself to be a “typical” middle child, may not be as “American” as her older sister. But she still demonstrates her desire to work and earn some money so that she can  pay for her expenses. This sense of responsibility and independence that she possesses distinguishes her from other Dominican kids of her age. She knows she has to focus on her studies (even though she is used to failing math) and the SAT so that she too can go to college like Monica. In the movie, Aida tells the audience that although she doesn’t show it, she is very proud of her mother’s accomplishments in America. She quits her job and has unnecessary demands for materialistic things but it is important to note that as a 16 year old, this is to be expected. But overall, she seems mature for her age and is highly aware of the importance of achieving her goals.

Mayra, who is fourteen years old, considers herself to be the “ghetto” kid. Since she is the youngest, we can expect her to be a bit immature than the others. Her focus is more on her friends rather than her studies. It is obvious that Mrs. Ortiz has the hardest time getting Mayra to be studious like Monica. Instead of using Monica as an inspiration, Mayra doesn’t want to be anything like her because Mrs. Ortiz is always comparing her to Monica. Mrs. Ortiz, who doesn’t know much English, expresses her frustration about the lack of English skills and how her Mayra is taking advantage of this weakness. Mrs. Ortiz is fed up with Mayra’s shenanigans and she wishes to send the fourteen year old to Dominican Republic. Unlike Aida, who doesn’t want to go back and finish her studies there, Mayra is agrees to finish high school in the Dominican Republic. Therefore, I consider her to be the least “American” out of all of her siblings even though she is born and brought up in the United States.

In My American Girls the girls were shaped in different ways because of the different communities they were part of. All the girls during their childhood lived in the same neighborhood of Sunset Park. Specifically, they lived in a Hispanic neighborhood of Sunset Park. However, not all of the girls were part of the Dominican community that was formed by Dominican immigrants. For example, Monica went to private school and therefore went to school with wealthier people who were not Dominican or Hispanic. Many of the people she was exposed to in school were Caucasian. She became more of an outsider to the Dominican Community because she hung out with non-Dominicans and had a way of life that was to the way of life the private school people had. The eighth grade girl on the other hand was very part of the Dominican community. She played outside with Dominicans and identified very strongly with being a Dominican. She did not go to the private school like Monica did.

The three daughters were all very different and had different experiences as American-Dominicans. For example, Monica was a very Americanized Dominican. She assimilated into the culture of the Americans at her school and seemed slightly offended when people did not recognize her as being Dominican. Her family in the Dominican Republic would tell her that she was Dominican and not American, and she did not like that. Monica also in a way fit into the American dream that is most discussed. Her mom was very poor when she came here and was not educated, but Monica was able to work hard and get a prestigious education, which opened up opportunities to her, in terms of jobs and life style. For example, right after she graduated college she was able to move to a wealthier part of Manhattan and get a job. The middle child had some similar qualities to Monica. She said that she did not want to turn out like some other kids she knew, who also probably came from immigrant families, and she wanted to work hard and be successful in America. She even took initiative by looking for a job for herself, but was fired very quickly. What she wanted to be in America and what was happening to her did not agree. The youngest daughter did not seem to care about being successful in America and also did not identify much with being an American. Considering her carefree lifestyle, her future in America was probably not much of a concern to her.

One part of the documentary that stuck out to me was the part where Monica talked with the other Dominican actress about the Dominican Republic. They were saying that the places their families came from in the Dominican Republic were very different in terms of their cultures. This made me think about the term “Hispanic”, which groups people in Latin America together. Based on the conversation, even saying Dominican is generalizing where someone is from. No matter what someone refers to another person as, a generalization may be made.