Esperanza Rising is a Historical Fiction novel, written by Pam Muñoz Ryan. The book is about a girl named Esperanza and her family, and their rollercoaster of a life. In the first Chapters of the book, she is depicted as wealthy. During that time, their house and land are burnt down by Tío Luis and Tío Marco. The Father (“Papa”) was killed by Bandits, never to be seen again in the book. After the disaster, the Family moves to a farm in California with the help of Abuelita, Esperanza’s Grandmother. From that point forward, they recover from their hard times by working on the farm for money. Esperanza goes through a lot of changes in the story, and her events connect to some of the things that happened in my life.…
Connecting the snoring, the rain and Mama’s hair is to give the scene a calming and cozy atmosphere. This section of “Hair” compares all the safe and comforting things in Esperanza’s life to convey that when she experiences them it makes her feel secure. This is similar to a security blanket that children have as a baby, they hold them to feel safe when their parents are not close or all the time. Esperanza expressing that her mother’s hair comforts her, shows how close she is to her mother because just looking at her hair makes her feel safe. However, this was not the case for many children in Esperanza’s position, numerous parents would have financial and marriage problems at the least and when the stress would build up, they would take it out on their children. Many children needed something like Esperanza’s mother’s hair so that they would feel safe without looking for another more harmful way to distract themselves from the pressure of their daily lives. Furthermore, Esperanza was extremely fortunate because her parents loved her and was for the most part safe at home. The effect of linking Esperanza’s father’s snoring, the rain and her mama’s hair on the audience was to create a soothing ambience and take a break working about growing up and the dangers in that process. This chapter was the most serene chapter so far in the book because she is talking about peaceful things in her life. On the contrary, the other chapters (so far) have been discussing growing up and the pressures of developing into a woman/adult. The author wanted to discuss these pleasures to take a break from her troubles so that the story would not become dark. In conclusion, the author wrote the book like how Esperanza lived and thought, she was constantly reminded of the troubles of maturing, but had reminders, like her mother’s hair, that would ease her stress and remind her it was…
Starting in Kindergarten, a child begins to become aware of the neighborhood and status. This idea of childhood neighborhood impaction seems unreliable as adults mature. Although, Brando Skyhorse’s novel Madonnas of Echo Park proves otherwise. He describes the different perspectives of many characters and their neighborhoods. The first chapter follows Hector, an Mexican immigrant recently laid off. Hector has lost his job at a restaurant and now takes labor jobs to pay the bills. This connects to the millions of immigrants who grew up in a second rate country. Often, someone growing up in a place like the United States is more likely to have more opportunities. Thus, Hector does not have many opportunities as an adult as an immigrant. Hector's…
In the book “The House On Mango Street” by Sandra Cisneros is a coming to age novel. It tells a story about Esperanza a latina girl growing up in the wonderful world of Chicago with her friends and family. Esperanza and her family recently have moved to mango street. They have moved around a lot in her lifetime because they are poor. Esperanza is determined to leave the house on mango street but in her latino culture most women leave by…
Esperanza Cordero is a twelve year old girl living in poverty. Her family moves to a run-down home on Mango Street in Chicago due to her parents wanting to independently own a house. The story begins when Esperanza is twelve, and continues for a year. Throughout the year, Esperanza and her friends Lucy and Rachel experience physical as well as mental changes. For the first half of the story, the girls are living as “children.” They are vulnerable to the harmful influences of society. Some times when they are susceptible to these influences is when they strut around town in high heels and when Esperanza does not notice the issue when a man kisses her at her job. During the summer time, the girls begin puberty and to become sexually mature. In…
Esperanza was woken up early in the morning by her dad with news that her abuelito is dead. She is unsure with what to do since she has never seen her father cry before and she is the first to know of all her siblings. Her father is traveling to Mexico to the funeral and is leaving Esperanza with the responsibility to stay strong and tell her siblings. Esperanza imagines what she would do if her father died and how terrible she would feel as she says, “And I think if my own Papa died what would I do. I hold my Papa in my arms. I hold and hold and hold him”(57). Esperanza is too young for her father to die of natural causes, so she does not know how it would feel to loose someone so important and crucial in her life. The song, I am still standing,…
In this passage from The House on Mango Street Esperanza shows her dislike for her name and wishes that she had a different name. She and her great-grandmother both shared the same name, and Esperanza did not want to have the same fate as her. She says “I don’t want to inherit her place by the window”, she does not want to be sad and feel trapped and not able to do anything with her life. Her great-grandmother did not want to marry but once she had she ended up being sad. Esperanza is trying not to be like her great-grandmother and become trapped and sad.…
HOMS Theme Essay Growing up, everyone expects it as this unbelievably spontaneous thing . In Sandra Cisneros book “The house on Mango Street” states that growing up can happen to people variously, in good and bad ways. In the pages 46- 57 there is a lot of growing up in many of the characters especially Esperanza. Esperanza gets her first job, during her break time she mingles with an oriental man; “ He grabs my face with both hands and kisses me hard on the mouth,”(55).…
Esperanza is the main character in the book “The House on Mango Street”. She started off as a naive girl that doesn’t know anything about the real world she lives in. As time passes she learns more about herself and the world around her. Another major character in this book is Sally. Sally was born into a harsh family where her father will beats her. Sally was always trapped by her father until one day she marries a man that treats her just like her father but, she doesn’t notices.…
The book, Esperanza Rising, is a story of a young girl and her once wealthy family who…
Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan is a book about the struggles Esperanza Ortega experienced growing up in Aguascalientes, Mexico on El Ranch de las Rosas. Esperanza’s life was altered in three major ways. She lost her father after some bandits shot him, she lost her house after her uncle Tio Luis set it on fire, and her perfect and rich life at only thirteen years old. After a streak of misfortune, Esperanza lost hope and thought her life would never get better.…
In 1984 Sandra Cisneros wrote the novella The House on Mango Street based on the narrator, Esperanza’s, first year living on Mango Street. A young Latino girl, by the name of Esperanza, is growing up in the suburbs of Chicago and is determined to leave her life on Mango Street in her past. In this novella Cisneros explores the effect of loss of innocence on Mango Street. The roles of women and how they treat each other is highly prominent in The House on Mango Street. Throughout Esperanza’s year on Mango Street she begins to realize that women have a responsibility to not harm each other but to help.…
In this book Esperanza gets affected by the community she lives in and the people that live there. “On the avenue a boy on a homemade bicycle calls out: Ladies, lead me me to heaven(pg 41).” In this sentence Esperanza is being influenced by the people in her neighborhood because someone around her is complimenting her based on how she looks. This type of compliment happened because of the neighborhood and the type of vocabulary that they use where she lives. There are many things that affect Esperanza.…
Esperanza Rising was about a girl who goes from “riches to rags.” In this book, Esperanza experiences prejudice because she is Hispanic and living among white Americans. Prejudice is something worth despising because it singles out gay or lesbian, crossdressers, people of different races, and people who are different in general. Prejudice is when people say they are better than other people because the other people are different. Often times people single out others because of their race; that is called racial prejudice. In this book Esperanza must endure a lot of racial prejudice including unfair wages, bad working conditions, and unfair judgment by skin color.…
Hart draws a childhood picture of endurance, inconsistency, and wants on many levels as well as the struggle to escape and the compulsion to remain in her migrant society. Elva had to struggle with living in the different societies as her family travelled each year to Minnesota from Texas so the adults and older children could work in the beet fields as manual laborers. Elva also didn’t have the sense of belonging or the security of her siblings of belonging to that community of the other families working together in the fields. Her father (Apa) did require that his family return early each year to Pearsall, Texas so his children could receive a proper education. He was very adamant about all of his kids graduating from school. In her own family, she had a sense of isolation since she was the youngest child and was unable to work the fields; she could only stay on the sidelines and watch. The first summer, Elva and her sister were separated from their family and had to live in a place supervised by nuns. The following summers while on the side of the fields watching for Apa’s signal to bring them water, she passed most of her time in virtual solitude. Elva remembers her birthday being celebrated only once during her…