Josie Mendez-Negrete’s novel, Las Hijas de Juan: Daughters Betrayed, is a very disturbing tale about brutal domestic abuse and incest. Negrete’s novel is an autobiography regarding experiences of incest in a working-class Mexican American family. It is Josie Mendez-Negrete’s story of how she, her siblings, and her mother survived years of violence and sexual abuse at the hands of her father. “Las Hijas de Juan" is told chronologically, from the time Mendez-Negrete was a child until she was a young adult trying, along with the rest of her family, to come to terms with her father 's brutal legacy. It is a upsetting story of abuse and shame compounded by cultural and linguistic isolation and a system of patriarchy that devalues the experiences of women and girls. At the same time, "Las Hijas de Juan" is an inspirational tale, filled with strong women and hard-won solace found in traditional Mexican cooking, songs, and storytelling.…
The House on Mango Street is a beloved book spanning a great generation of readers. The House on Mango Street is a fictional story about the life of a young girl, Esperanza, growing up on Mango Street in a poor neighborhood. She grows up in a society where men are dominant over women. This shapes her in many ways, including her thoughts of men. Cisneros's use of syntax and figurative language, in the form of repetition and metaphors, alludes to the reader that if women allow themselves to be trapped by men's dreams, they forfeit their freedom, power, and independence.…
Though I am aware that this is not a creative writing assignment, I cannot help but, at the very least, mention my personal experience as a first generation Mexican-American as it was fundamentally influential to my choice to read Sandra Cisneros’s novel as well as my overall understanding and analysis of Caramelo. Reading Caramelo has awakened within me senses, memories, experiences that have been dormant, or as Celaya, according to Gonzales, repressed for many years. As a child, raised by my mami, Tita (Cristina Ellen), and my abuelita, Cristi (Maria Cristina), Spanish was the only language spoken at home. Like Celaya, when spoken to in Spanish, I replied in English. Birthdays, we sang “Las Mañanitas,” “The Little Mornings,” instead of Happy Birthday, just as Celaya recalls in Caramelo. We celebrated “las posadas,” the twelve days of Christmas with a rosca, bread in the forma of a cake, large and redondo, round, with a plastic bebe, baby, Jesús baked within. On the day of los Reyes Magos, the three wise men, our shoes were filled with pesetas, coins. Abuelita, or grama as I called her in my Spanglish, prepared: tamales dulces, sweet, of pineapple and strawberry; chiles rellenos, filled with raisins, meat, nuts, and topped with salsa agria, sour cream, and queso, cheese; flan; paella, rice with seafood. Summers we drove forever, manejábamos lejísimos, just as Celaya, mami’s left arm quemada, burnt red, across the border and all the way through Mexico, 18 hours, with el PoPo, Mt. Popocatepetl, always on the horizon. Usually two months in Cuernavaca,…
The film portrays Mariana, the female protagonist’s quick fall into poverty with her two young children. Over the course of a summer, Mariana loses her apartment and is homeless and desperate to take care of her children. Her husband’s friends effectively avoid her and leave her isolated with no knowledge of English or means to support herself. Mariana’s story is about the lack of support single immigrant women receive in terms of housing, health, childcare, and employment services. The film also shows the undue burden that Mariana’s children pose to her. Childcare almost always falls on the backs of women, especially immigrant women. Her children are precious to her, but she has a harder time finding employment because she cannot leave her young children alone. This time in their lives is a transformative moment for the…
Sandra Cisneros, the award-winning author of the highly acclaimed The House on Mango Street and several other esteemed works, has produced a stunning new novel, Caramelo. This long-anticipated novel is an all-embracing epic of family history, Mexican history, the immigrant experience, and a young Mexican-American woman's road to adulthood. We hope the following introduction, discussion questions, suggested reading list, and author biography enhance your group's reading of this captivating and masterful literary work.…
Sandra Cisneros conveys the grim daily struggles for Esperanza in her book, The House On Mango Street. Throughout the novel, Esperanza searches for her identity and longs for freedom, while experiencing gender bias and objectification in her neighborhood. She rejects a life of poverty, submission to men, and stereotypes. During her year on Mango Street, she grows, dreams, and learns how to overcome these struggles.…
The House on Mango Street is the “coming of age” story of a Mexican-American girl named Esperanza Cordero. The story covers a year in Esperanza's life starting with when she moved to the house on mango street. As the year progresses Esperanza grows emotionally and artistically, as the novel roams through her experience of life. Esperanza, her friends (Rachel, Lucy), and her sister Nenny have many adventures throughout the book. Esperanza has many life experiences including the art of poetry and music also the downsides of poverty and shame. Although the novel includes unforgettable men it also includes women who a trapped in many ways. For Example, Mamacita does not leave the apartment b/c she is afraid of the English language. Rafaela who…
There are countless genres of literature throughout the world. From fiction, to nonfiction, biographies and autobiographies, they are all different. Yet they all share a common purpose which is to convey a message. Some pieces of literature known as autoethnographic texts are written to illustrate the hardships of people in contact zones. Contact zones are areas in which two different cultures meet and live in very different ways. This often creates an uneven power relationship between the two cultures. One culture will almost always have a greater legitimacy and is seen as dominant. The other, in contrast, is much less significant and is seen as marginalized. A few examples of autoethnographic texts are Pocho by Jose Antonio Villarreal, …And the Earth Did Not Devour Him by Tomas Rivera and The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. In all three texts, the protagonists are a part of a marginalized culture of Mexican Americans in the United States. In order to survive, the marginalized group must adapt and take on the ideals of the U.S. dominant culture. This presents many essential themes and gives a greater understanding of the protagonists ' lives as members of a marginalized group. The primary themes portrayed in the novels Pocho by Jose Antonio Villarreal, …And the Earth Did Not Devour Him by Tomas Rivera and The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros are machismo, religion and education.…
The first stuggle that latinos have to overcome when they come here is the language barrier. Something that mamacita in "No speak english" does not understand. Mamacita is a women who doesn't want to change her lifestyle to the american way. She only knows a few words and like many latinos no speak english is the main thing she says. Esperanza believes that "she doesn't comes out because she is afraid to speak english". Many latino immigrants go through the same thing. If it's not…
In the story "Woman Hollering Creek" Sandra Cisneros discusses the issues of living life as a married woman through a character named Cleofilas; a character who is married to a man who abuses her physically and mentally .Cisneros reveals the way the culture puts a difference between a male and a female, men above women. Cisneros has been famous about writing stories about the latino culture and how women are treated; she explain what they go through as a child, teen and when they are married; always dominated by men because of how the culture has been adapted. "Woman Hollering Creek" is one of the best examples. A character who grows up without a mother and who has no one to guid and give her advise about life.…
The young speakers in this section (including the speaker in "Tepeyac," who "becomes" an adult only as her story ends) are excellently realized because they notice particulars and report them: the smashed-bug-on-the-windshield color inside a cat's-eye marble, the stickiness of a melting orange Popsicle, a child's shadow falling on a movie screen, every item on every table at a sidewalk flea market (or an inclusive selection). They report as well the intense emotions of childhood and, all in all, capture perfectly for the reader the essence of being a child. We are reminded of Sandra Cisneros' early determination to write out of (although not necessarily about) her own particular experience and are able to see how that experience informs her characters' voices with authenticity. Perhaps it is important, then, to remember that these stories can be read on different levels. Cisneros' characters will speak directly and honestly to young readers and will remind older readers of feelings we have if we were lucky known once but probably forgotten. Readers who share Cisneros' Latino background may recognize her perspective, but readers of other backgrounds will hardly be puzzled by…
Sandra Cisneros’ book The House on Mango Street raises a number of issues that merit further discussion. In this essay, you are to choose a vignette and discuss an issue that is raised by the story. Then, relate the issue raised by the story to your own life. You need not agree with Cisneros’ take on the issue, but in your essay you should use her ideas as a jumping off point for your own understanding of the issue.…
In addition, Cisneros’s main themes include the complex relations between Anglo-Americans, Mexican Americans, and Mexicans. Noted throughout her work, it is inferred that her purposes as an artist is to change the way in which people see their world. Her works thus often present a picture of Latino life from a point of view that reveals aspects that ordinarily might be hidden. For example, in “Los Boxers,” opens with a child dropping and breaking a bottle of soda, setting up a situation in which the mother, following orders, cleans up the glass and mops away the spill, while the man watches and lectures. He never thinks of helping her; in his culture, this is unthinkable, even for a man who has learned to do his own laundry. Because Cisneros…
Goings essay of “The House On Mango Street” highlights Esperanza’s search for freedom from the patriarchal society of men. Esperanza is a child developing into an adult who struggles with the supportive and significance of the Chicano society that she lives in. She finds herself through experiences and frees herself and other women. She writes down her exposures and observations from her life which include abuse, tyranny, and victimization. Esperanza tries to abstain from the culture and the society controlled by men. Throughout the book, Esperanza acknowledges the fact that she does not want to adapt to the Chicano community…
Once her father realized how Barrientos felt about her native culture, he sought to rectify her feelings by sending her to Mexico City. He told her that living there would allow her to see what Mexican culture had to offer. “That way when anybody calls you Mexican, you will hold your head up” (Barrientos, 2011, p 59). His plan worked, and now Mrs. Barrientos reveals in an enlightening tone that she has spent the…