Professional Documents
Culture Documents
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IFIMIGTIM...
The experiences of Esperanza, the adolescent
protagonist of The House on Mango Street, closely
resemble those of Sandra Cisneros's childhood.
The author was born to a Mexican father and a
Mexican American mother in 1954 in Chicago, Illi-
nois, the only daughter of seven children. The fam-
ily, for whom money was always in short supply,
frequently moved between the ghetto neighbor-
hoods of Chicago and the areas of Mexico where
her father's family lived. Cisneros remembers that
as a child she often felt a sense of displacement.
By 1966 her parents had saved enough money for
a down payment on a run-down, two-story house
in a decrepit Puerto Rican neighborhood on
Chicago's north side. There Cisneros spent much
of her childhood. This house, as well as the color- Sandra Cisneros
ful group of characters Cisneros observed around
her in the barrio, served as inspiration for some of
the stories in The House on Mango Street.
The author once remarked, "Because we
moved so much, and always in neighborhoods that as a Chicana became clear. Though at first she im-
appeared like France after World War 1I-empty itated the style and tone of acclaimed American au-
lots and burned-out buildings-I retreated inside thors, Cisneros came to realize that her experience
myself." Cisneros was an introspective child with as a Hispanic woman differed from that of her
few friends; her mother encouraged her to read and classmates and offered an opportunity to develop
write at a young age, and made sure her daughter her own voice. Cisneros once remarked, "Every-
had her own library card. The author wrote poems one seemed to have some communal knowledge
and stories as a schoolgirl, but the impetus for her which I did not have-My classmates were from
career as a creative writer came during her college the best schools in the country. They had been bred
years, when she was introduced to the works of as fine hothouse flowers. I was a yellow weed
Donald Justice, James Wright, and other writers among the city's cracks." The author began to ex-
who made Cisneros more aware of her cultural plore her past experiences, which served as the in-
roots. spiration of many of her stories and distinguished
Cisneros graduated from Loyola University in her from her peers. Her master's thesis, My Wicked
1976 with a B.A. in English. She began to pursue Wicked Ways (Iowa, 1978, published as a book in
graduate studies in writing at the University of 1987) is a collection of poems that begins to ex-
Iowa, and earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in plore daily experiences, encounters, and observa-
creative writing in 1978. Cisneros says that through tions in this new-found voice.
high school and college, she did not perceive her- Cisneros has held several fellowships that have
self as being different from her fellow English ma- allowed her to focus on her writing full-time. These
jors. She spoke Spanish only at home with her fa- awards have enabled her to travel to Europe and to
ther, but otherwise wrote and studied within the other parts of the United States, including a stint in
mainstream of American literature. At the Univer- Austin, Texas, where she experienced another
sity of Iowa Writers' Workshop, Cisneros found thriving community of Latin American culture. She
her true voice as an author. Compared with her has also taught creative writing and worked with
more privileged, wealthier classmates from more students at the Latino Youth Altemative High
stable environments, Cisneros's cultural difference School in Chicago.
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tiful to look at." Rafaela stands as a symbol for the product of the community in which she lives and
interior world of women on Mango Street, whose one of the only figures courageous enough to tran-
lives are circumscribed and bound by the structure scend her circumstances. Like all adolescents, Es-
of home and family. peranza struggles to forge her own identity. In
many respects, Esperanza's own keen observations
Ruthie and musings about the women in her neighborhood
Ruthie, "the only grown-up we know who likes are her way of processing what will happen to her
to play," is a troubled, childlike woman whose hus- in the future and what is within her power to
band left her and was forced to move from her own change. On the one hand, she is surrounded by ado-
house in the suburbs back to Mango Street with her lescent myths and superstitions about sexuality. In
mother. the story "Hips," the adolescent Esperanza con-
templates why women have hips: "The bones just
Sally one day open. One day you might decide to have
Sally wears black clothes, short skirts, nylons, kids, and then where are you going to put them?"
and makeup. Esperanza looks upon her with fasci- Esperanza boldly experiments with the trappings
nation and wonder, and wants to emulate her, but of womanhood by wearing high heels in "The
the dark side of Sally's life is revealed in her rela- Family of Little Feet," and in "Sally," she looks
tionship with her abusive father. She trades one enviously to the girl as an image of maturity: "My
type of ensnarement for another by manrying a mother says to wear black so young is dangerous,
marshmallow salesman before the eighth grade. but I want to buy shoes just like yours." However,
Esperanza's brushes with sexuality are dangerous
Sire and negative in "The First Job" and "Red Clowns,"
Sire is a young man who leers at Esperanza as and she feels betrayed by the way love is portrayed
she walks down the street, provoking in her inex- by her friends, the movies, and magazines. Esper-
tricable feelings of desire, foreboding, and fear. Es- anza observes characters such as Sally, Minerva,
peranza says that "it made your blood freeze to have and Rafaela, who, through early and abusive mar-
somebody look at you like that." riages, are trapped in the neighborhood and into
identifying themselves through their male connec-
The Three Sisters tions. After witnessing this, Esperanza says in
"The Three Sisters" are Rachel and Lucy's el- "Beautiful & Cruel," "I have decided not to grow
derly aunts who come to visit when Rachel and up tame like the others who lay their necks on the
Lucy's baby sister dies. The three ladies recognize threshold waiting for the ball and chain." Esper-
Esperanza's strong-willed nature, and plead with anza also forges her identity through the metaphor
her not to forget the ones she leaves behind on of the house. Her longing for a house of her own
Mango Street when she flees from there one day. underscores her need for something uplifting and
stable with which she can identify. Throughout the
Rosa Vargas book there is a tension between Esperanza's ties
In the story, "There Was an Old Woman She to the barrio and her impressions of another kind
Had So Many Children She Didn't Know What to of life outside of it. Ultimately, Esperanza's abil-
Do," Rosa is portrayed as a woman left in the lurch ity to see beyond her immediate surroundings al-
by a husband who abandoned her and their unruly lows her to transcend her circumstances and im-
kids. "They are bad those Vargas, and how can they maturity.
help it with only one mother who is tired all the
time from buttoning and bottling and babying, and Culture and Heritage
who cries every day for the man who left without Difference
even leaving a dollar for bologna or a note ex- Esperanza keenly observes the struggles of
plaining how come." Hispanic Americans who wish to preserve the
essence of their heritage while striving to forge pro-
ductive lives within American culture. It is through
the sordid details of the lives of Esperanza's neigh-
bors that we glimpse the humorous, moving, and
Coming of Age tragic sides of these struggles. Esperanza's com-
Through various themes in The House on munity serves as a microcosm of Latinos in Amer-
Mango Street Esperanza reveals herself as both a ica, and her own identity is interwoven with the
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bands or fathers. The story "There Was an Old twenty-one steps, all lopsided and jutting like
Woman She Had So Many Children She Didn't crooked teeth." Mamacita's son paints the inside
Know What to Do," tells of an abandoned young walls of her house pink, a reminder of the Mexican
wife and her unruly children. In "Linoleum Roses," home she left to come to America. The furniture in
Sally is not allowed to talk on the phone or look Elena's house is covered in red fur and plastic. Es-
out the window because of a jealous, domineering peranza gives the impression of a crowded neigh-
husband. Girls marry young in this society: "Min- borhood where people live in close quarters and lean
erva is only a little bit older than me but already out of windows, and where one can hear fighting,
she has two kids and a husband who left." But Es- talking, and music coming from other houses on the
peranza is a courageous character who defies the street. Esperanza describes the types of shops in the
stereotypes of Chicanas. She laments the attitudes concrete landscape of Mango Street: a laundromat,
that prevail in her community. Of her name, Es- a junk store, the corner grocery. Cats, dogs, mice,
peranza says, "It was my great-grandmother's and cockroaches make appearances at various times.
name and now it is mine. She was a horse woman However, while Esperanza gives fleeting glimpses
too, born like me in the Chinese year of the horse- of specific places, the images that the girl paints of
which is supposed to be bad luck if you're born fe- her neighborhood are mostly understood through
male-but I think this is a Chinese lie because the the people that inhabit it.
Chinese, like the Mexicans, don't like their women
strong." It is Esperanza's power to see beyond the Structure
barriers of her neighborhood, fueled by her educa- Just like Esperanza, whose identity isn't easy
tion gained through reading and writing, that keep to define, critics have had difficulty classifying The
her from being trapped in the same roles as the House on Mango Street. Is it a collection of short
women who surround her. stories? A novel? Essays? Autobiography? Poetry?
Prose poems? The book is composed of very short,
loosely organized vignettes. Each stands as a whole
in and of itself, but collectively the stories cumu-
late in a mounting progression that creates an un-
Point of View derlying coherence; the setting remains constant,
The House on Mango Street is narrated by the and the same characters reappear throughout the
adolescent Esperanza, who tells her story in the tales. Cisneros once explained: "I wanted to write
form of short, vivid tales. The stories are narrated stories that were a cross between poetry and fic-
in the first person ("I"), giving the reader an inti- tion-[I] wanted to write a collection which could
mate glimpse of the girl's outlook on the world. Al- be read at any random point without having any
though critics often describe Esperanza as a child- knowledge of what came before or after." Despite
like narrator, Cisneros said in a 1992 interview in the disjunctive nature of the stories, as they evolve,
Interviews with Writers of the Post-Colonial World: Esperanza undergoes a maturation process, and she
"If you take Mango Street and translate it, it's Span- emerges at the end showing a more courageous and
ish. The syntax, the sensibility, the diminutives, the forthright facade.
way of looking at inanimate objects-that's not a
child's voice as is sometimes said. That's Spanish! Imagery
I didn't notice that when I was writing it." Incor- Despite certain underlying threads that link the
porating and translating Spanish expressions liter- tales in The House on Mango Street, the stories
ally into English, often without quotation marks, nonetheless remain disembodied from the kind of
adds a singular narrative flavor that distinguishes master narrative that typifies much of American fic-
Cisneros's work from that of her peers. tion. The stories have a surreal and fragmented qual-
ity consistent with short, impressionistic glimpses
Setting into the mind of Esperanza. Rather than relying on
The House on Mango Street is set in a Latino long descriptive and narrative sequences that char-
neighborhood in Chicago. Esperanza briefly de- acterize many novels in English, Cisneros reveals
scribes some of the rickety houses in her neighbor- dialogue and evokes powerful imagery with few
hood, beginning with her own, which she says is words. With a minimum number of words, Cisneros
"small and red with tight steps in front." Of Meme includes humorous elements like the nicknames of
Ortiz's house, Esperanza says that "Inside the floors her playmates, family, and neighbors-Nenny,
slant-And there are no closets. Out front there are Meme, and Kiki, for example. But she also, with
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few descriptive elements, evokes the ugliness of vi- song voice, with the repetitive quality of a nursery
olence and sexual aggression swirling around her in rhyme. Cisneros's tone is at once youthful and
the barrio. The author's carefully crafted, compact lighthearted, but displays a tragic or menacing tone
sentences convey poignant meanings that can be at times. Cisneros once commented, "I wanted sto-
read on different levels. Seemingly simple dialogue ries like poems, compact and lyrical and ending
reveals deeper, underlying concerns of the narrator. with reverberation." In her more recent works, Cis-
A straightforward dialogue between Esperanza and neros has outgrown the girlish voice of Esperanza
Nenny about a house that reminded the girls of Mex- and takes on more mature themes while retaining
ico in the story "Laughter," for example, evokes the this distinctive lyrical quality in her writing.
connection of the girls to one another and to the
country of their heritage. The bizarre yet moving __
experiences of Esperanza evoke a social commen-
tary but do not explicitly state it. Cisneros strikes a
tenuous balance between humor and pathos, be- Mexican Immigration to the United
tween tragic and comic elements. States
Cisneros plays on her dual Mexican American
Symbols heritage throughout her work, and The House on
Several important symbolic elements charac- Mango Street in particular reflects the experience
terize The House on Mango Street. First, the im- of Mexicans in the United States. In the mid-
age of the house is a powerful one. The house that nineteenth century, Mexico ceded its northern ter-
Esperanza lives in-small, crooked, drab-con- ritories (present-day California, Arizona, and New
trasts with the image of the house that Esperanza Mexico) to the United States at the end of the Mex-
imagines for herself in "Bums in the Attic": "I want ican War, and Mexican landowners lost many of
a house on a hill like the ones with the gardens their rights under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
where Papa works." But the metaphor of the house From about 1900 to 1920, immigrants from Mex-
is more than pure materialism. The house repre- ico were actively recruited into the United States
sents everything that Esperanza does not have-fi- as low-cost labor for railroad, mining, and other in-
nancial means and pleasant surroundings-but dustries, especially throughout the southwestern
more importantly, it represents stability, triumph, United States. Mexican immigration was wide-
and transcendence over the pressures of the neigh- spread and unregulated through the 1920s, when
borhood. Throughout the book, especially in sto- immigration from Mexico and some other countries
ries such as "The House on Mango Street," and "A hit its peak. Between World War I and World War
Rice Sandwich," Esperanza struggles with the em- II, however, Mexican immigration came to a halt
barrassment of poverty: "You live there? The way due in part to the pressures of the Great Depres-
she [aunt] said it made me feel like nothing. There. sion, and Mexican Americans faced repatriation,
I lived there." Another important symbol in the poverty, and rampant discrimination.
book are the trappings of womanhood-shoes, Despite their contribution and service to the
makeup, black clothes-that fascinate and intimi- U.S. Army during World War II, Mexican Ameri-
date the adolescent Esperanza, who carefully ob- cans continued to face discrimination upon return-
serves the other women in her community. Al- ing home after World War II. For example, many
though at times these signs of womanhood leave Mexican Americans were treated like second-class
Esperanza feeling betrayed, in "Beautiful & Cruel," citizens. And throughout the fifties and sixties, de-
she sees them as potential for power: "In the movies spite their eagerness to integrate more fully into
there is always one with red red lips who is beau- American society, Mexican Americans were still
tiful and cruel. She is the one who drives the men treated as "outsiders" by mainstream American cul-
crazy and laughs them all away. Her power is her ture. Despite their push for civil rights throughout
own. She will not give it away." the 1960s and the 1970s, many Chicanos still faced
discrimination that limited opportunities for ad-
Tone vancement. By 1983, when The House on Mango
Cisneros's writing is often compared to music Street was published, stringent U.S. immigration
for its poetic, lyrical quality. The House on Mango laws had long limited the number of Mexicans who
Street has a strong aural character, and the author were allowed to immigrate to the United States.
clearly has an interest in sound that comes through Those who had immigrated legally or been born in
in much of her poetry. Esperanza speaks in a sing- America still experienced stereotyping and biases
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in American culture at large. In "Those Who other countries. The population of Hispanics in the
Don't," Cisneros evokes the stereotyping of Mex- United States continues to swell, and by some es-
ican Americans: "Those who don't know any bet- timates, they will make up about thirteen percent
ter come into our neighborhood scared. They think of the nation's population by the early years of the
we're dangerous. They think we will attack them twenty-first century.
with shiny knives."
Because of the discrimination often leveled at Historically, Mexican American men and
Spanish-speaking populations by English-speaking women have suffered negative stereotyping and
Americans, many Mexican Americans choose to prejudices that prevented them from securing de-
resist speaking Spanish except among family sirable jobs and being upwardly mobile within the
within the privacy of their homes. Cisneros, for ex- society. Therefore, many remain concentrated in
ample, remembers that she only spoke Spanish with low-income neighborhoods like the one portrayed
her father at home, while otherwise being fully in- in The House on Mango Street. Poverty is a real-
tegrated within the mainstream American educa- ity faced by many Mexican American populations
tional system. On the other hand, other Mexican living in the United States. In The House on
Americans, particularly those of the older genera- Mango Street, the theme of poverty pervades the
tions who retained a nostalgia for their mother stories. In "Alicia Who Sees Mice," for example,
the mice are a symbol of poverty. Alicia, who
country, never relinquished the use of Spanish as
their primary tongue. In The House on Mango stays up late studying because she "doesn't want
Street, for example, Mamacita consciously refused to spend her whole life in a factory or behind a
to speak English because for her it represented a rolling pin," sees the mice scurrying around after
blatant rejection of her past and her identity, and dark, a symbol of her circumstances in the neigh-
she limited her English vocabulary to "He not borhood. In The House on Mango Street, the
here," "No speak English," and "Holy smokes." Es- source of Esperanza's embarrassment about her
peranza's father remembers eating nothing but house and her circumstances derives from the
"hamandeggs" when he first arrived in the United poverty that many Mexican Americans face. In
States because it was the only English phrase he "Bums in the Attic," the economic disparity be-
knew. In the United States today, there is a renewed tween "people who live on hills" and those who
interest among the younger generation of Mexican live in the barrio is clear.
Americans to learn and more fully appreciate the The role of women within the history of the
Spanish language. Hispanic community is significant. Although in
The House on Mango Street and other works by
Cisneros, some Mexican American women are por-
Hispanic American Population and trayed as trapped within a cycle of socialization,
Culture Cisneros noted in a 1992 interview in Interviews
The largest number of Mexican Americans in with Writers of the Post-Colonial World, "I have
the United States are concentrated in southern Cal- to say that the traditional role is kind of a myth.
ifornia and Texas, with another sizable population The traditional Mexican woman is a fierce woman.
in New York City. As one of the largest cities in There's a lot of victimization but we are also fierce.
the United States, Chicago historically has also at- We are very fierce."
tracted immigrants from around the world, includ-
ing those from Mexico. Cisneros and her mother Cisneros says she was influenced by Ameri-
were born in the United States, as are many of the can and British writers throughout high school, and
characters in The House on Mango Street. Never- she remembers reading works such as Lewis Car-
theless, they retain strong ties with their Mexican roll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. But only
heritage and are integrated into the Mexican Amer- when she was introduced to the Chicago writing
ican communities throughout the country. In dif- scene in college and graduate school did Cisneros
ferent parts of the country, these groups are referred come in contact with Chicano writers. Later, Chi-
to as "Mexican American," "Mexicanos," "Chi- cano writers like Gary Soto, Loma Dee Cervantes,
canos," and sometimes by the more general terms and Alberto Rfos were also among her circle of col-
"Hispanics" or "Latinos," which collectively de- leagues. Today, Sandra Cisneros stands foremost
scribes people from those cultures colonized by among Chicana writers who emerged in the 1980s,
Spain from the fifteenth century to the present, in- including Ana Castillo, Denise Chavez, and Gloria
cluding Cuba, Puerto Rico, Mexico, and many Anzaldua.
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What
Do I Read
Next?
* My Wicked Wicked Ways, published as a book flects a more mature voice that characterizes
in 1987 by Sandra Cisneros, is an adaptation of Cisneros's work after The House on Mango
her master's thesis from the University of Iowa. Street. These poems are inspired by the author's
This collection of poems expresses various travels in Europe, and evoke her encounters with
themes of the writer's early career. men, all of whom are anonymously referred to
as "Rodrigo."
* Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories is
Cisneros's 1991 collection of stories character- * Baseball in April: And Other Stories by Gary
izing Mexican Americans living in San Anto- Soto (1990) realistically captures the daily lives
nio, Texas. The book explores the process of so- of young Hispanics in this collection of eleven
cialization and cultural assimilation of Mexicans short stories.
and Mexican Americans into American society. * Nicholasa Mohr's Nilda, published in 1973, fea-
* Bad Boys is a short collection of poems by San- tures a Puerto Rican girl living in the barrio of
dra Cisneros published in 1980. Like The House New York City during World War H, where she
on Mango Street, the poems in Bad Boys revolve meets discrimination every day.
around stories from Hispanic neighborhoods * 1995's The Air Down Here: True Tales from a
and are characterized by short, vivid phrases that South Bronx Boyhood, is a collection of remi-
evoke impressionistic images of her characters. niscences from Gil C. Alicea and Carmen De-
* The Rodrigo Poems, another collection of po- sena, who talk of real life for a teen in a His-
etry by Sandra Cisneros published in 1985, re- panic neighborhood of New York City.
dungsroman ("coming of age" story) as previously Critics have identified the novel as an exam-
explored from the Chicano perspective. ple of the growing up story, or bildungsroman,
which forms a general theme of Chicano and Chi-
Sandra Cisneros is a Chicago-born Chicana ac- cana literature. But Cisneros's text differs from
tivist, poet, and fiction writer. She has published the traditional Chicano bildungsroman, in which
two collections of poems, Bad Boys(1980) and My the boy becomes a man by first acquiring self-
Wicked Wicked Ways (1987), and a collection of sufficiency and then assuming his rightful place as
short stories entitled Woman Hollering Creek a leader in the community. It also differs from the
(1991). Her novel, The House on Mango Street, traditional Chicana bildungsroman, in which the
(1983) was awarded the Before Columbus Ameri- girl must give up her freedom and sense of indi-
can Book Award. viduality in order to join the community as a wife
The House on Mango Street is the fictional au- and mother. The goal of Esperanza, this novel's
tobiography of Esperanza Cordera, an adolescent protagonist and narrator, is to fashion an identity
Mexican American girl who wants to be a writer. for herself which allows her to control her own des-
Unlike the chapters in a conventional novel, the tiny and at the same time maintain a strong con-
forty-four vignettes, or literary sketches, which nection to her community.
make up the novel could each stand on its own as The novel's central image is the image of the
a short story. Read together, they paint a striking house. The book begins with a description of the
portrait of a young Chicana struggling to find a Corderos' new house on Mango Street, a far cry
place in her community without relinquishing her from the dream house with "a great big yard and
sense of self. grass growing without a fence" they'd always
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wanted, the house that would give them space and looks around Mango Street, she sees other women
freedom. Instead, the house on Mango Street is trapped in their houses, women like Rafaela, who
"small and red with tight steps in front and win- gets locked indoors when her husband goes out to
dows so small you'd think they were holding their play poker because she is too beautiful. Rafaela,
breath." Though her parents insist they are only who has traded in her own sexuality and indepen-
there temporarily, Esperanza knows the move is dence for security and respectability, wishes she
probably permanent. This is the house, the street, could go to "the dance hall down the street where
the identity she must now come to terms with one women much older than her throw green eyes eas-
way or another. ily like dice and open homes with keys."
As evidenced by her reaction to the new house, Another ventanera is Esperanza's friend Sally,
Esperanza has a very strong sense of place: both of who marries before she has finished eight grade in
where she is and of where others are in relation to order to escape her father's house. Rather than free-
her. In the opening vignette she tells of when a nun dom, however, a house of her own merely means
from her school passed by the ramshackle apart- more restrictions for Sally: her husband does not
ment the Cordero family lived in before Mango allow her to talk on the telephone or have friends
Street and asked Esperanza in surprise if she lived visit or even look out of the window. Instead, Sally
there. Esperanza confesses "The way she said it looks at "all the things they own: the towels and
made me feel like nothing." Esperanza also strug- the toaster, the alarm clock and the drapes." But
gles with being "placed" by her race and class in she, too, must give over control of her life to her
houses that are not hers, as in "Rice Sandwich," husband. Cisneros employs conventional romantic
when another nun assumes she lives in "a row of imagery to describe her new home: "the linoleum
three-flats, the ones even the raggedy men are roses on the floor, the ceiling smooth as wedding
ashamed to go into." cake," but in Sally's case the romance is a trap, the
roses and the wedding cake are the floor and ceil-
Mango Street is populated by people who feel ing of her cage.
out of place, caught between two countries-like
Mamacita in "No Speak English," who wants to re- By making the narrator of her novel a pread-
turn to Mexico. When her husband insists that the olescent girl, Cisneros represents Mango Street
United States is her home and she must learn to from the point of view of someone who is not yet
speak English, Mamacita "lets out a cry, hysteri- placed, not yet put into position. Esperanza's is a
cal, high, as if he had torn the only skinny thread voice that can question, a voice of hope (Esper-
that kept her alive, the only road out." Esperanza anza), a voice of transition. She is not inside the
herself feels caught between two cultures because house looking out, like many of the other girls and
of her name: "At school they say my name funny women, nor is she outside the community looking
as if the syllables were made out of tin and hurt the in with strange eyes, like the nuns. Often she is out
roof of your mouth. But in Spanish my name is in the street, looking in at the other women-ob-
made out of a softer something, like silver." Rather serving, analyzing, evaluating their situation.
than be defined by either pronunciation, however, In an interview with Pilar Rodriguez-Aranda
Esperanza asserts: "I would like to baptize myself in the America's Review, Cisneros discusses what
under a new name, a name more like the real me, she perceives to be the two predominant and con-
the one nobody sees. Esperanza as Lisandra or Mar- tradictory images of women in Mexican culture: La
itza or Zeze the X." Malinche and la Virgen de Guadalupe. The La Ma-
As a girl on the cusp of adulthood, Esperanza linche myth figures women as sexual, evil, and trai-
is particularly concerned with the place of women torous. The way history tells it, Malinche was an
in Latino culture. In "My Name," she describes Aztec noblewoman who was presented to Cortes,
how her great-grandmother, also named Esperanza, the Spanish conqueror of Mexico, and served as his
was forced to marry her great-grandfather and then lover, translator, and strategist. This is the histori-
placed in his house like a "fancy chandelier." The cal Malinche, but she has come to stand in Mexi-
house became for her, as it is for many of the can culture for the prostitute, the bearer of illegit-
women Esperanza observes, a site of confinement: imate children, responsible for the foreign Spanish
"she looked out the window her whole life, the way invasion which put an end to the Aztec empire. The
so many women sit their sadness on an elbow." Malinche myth is the reason the pretty young
This image of the ventanera or woman by the win- women of Mango Street are locked in their houses
dow, recurs throughout the novel. As Esperanza when their husbands go out. The other image Cis-
V o I u m e 2 1 2 5
Th e H o u s e o n M a n g o S t r e e t
12 6 N o v e l s f o r S t u d e n t s
T h e H o u s e o n M a n g o S t r e e t
path to freedom. And as in The Awakening, Esper- forgot he was her father between the buckle and
anza dreams of leaving her house, an action that the belt." So Sally leaves home for an early un-
like Edna's is related to all kinds of men who make happy marriage. Another friend, Alicia, goes to the
up the power structure in her Chicana world. university to break the pattern of her dead mother's
So in a general way Cisneros's novel belongs "rolling pin and sleepiness," but in studying all
to a female tradition in which culture and literary night and cooking, too, she begins to imagine that
quality are important. But for her, far more signif- she sees mice, whereupon her father belittles her.
icant as literary models are Huck Finn and Holden Esperanza says Alicia is afraid of nothing, "except
Caufield, primarily because they are adolescents four-legged fur. And fathers." Gradually, Esper-
growing up in culturally oppressive worlds. Cis- anza comes to see that the pressure on women in
neros's protagonist, like them, is innocent, sensi- Chicana families comes from a system she simply,
tive, considerate of others, but extremely vulnera- though painfully, has to leave....
ble. Like them, Esperanza speaks a child's Truly, all three books are wrought with vio-
language, though hers is peculiar to a girl and lence, which the protagonists seem to forgive....
young budding poet. And like her predecessors, she
grows mentally as time goes on; she knows how Esperanza also feels for the victims of vio-
she feels, and learns from the inside out what in lence. What is interesting is that she sometimes in-
Holden's terms is "phony," and what with Huck terprets violence in a broad sense as injustice, or
she is willing to "go to hell" for. There are, of something in society that keeps people homeless,
course, other Chicano novels that are bildungsro- or in shabby housing. In the attic of her new house
mans, such as Tomas Rivera's ... y no se lo trag6 she'll have, not "Rats," but "Bums" because they
la tierra, but none presents a better parallel to Huck need shelter. She has visions of the violence done
and Holden than Cisneros's Esperanza. to Geraldo, "another wetback," who rented "two-
room flats and sleeping rooms" while he sent
It may seem that the two boy's books are re- money back to Mexico; killed one night by a hit-
ally journeys, while Mango Street is limited to a and-run driver, he (in the minds of his people) sim-
house, and therefore set-the opposite of a geo- ply disappeared. That violence becomes worse
graphical quest. But when one looks at the patterns when individuals are confined to their homes. Ma-
of the novels, what the boys go out to see simply macita, the big woman across the street, is beauti-
comes past Esperanza, so that the effect is the same. ful but cannot get out because she "No speak Eng-
She is simply a girl, and does not have the cultural lish"-a phenomenon doubly tragic because her
opportunity to leave as they do. What is more im- baby sings Pepsi commercials. But mostly Esper-
portant is that Mango Street continues a paradigm anza identifies with wives mistreated by men who
of growth where a young person encounters an out- confine them to their homes. Raphaela is locked in
side world, evaluates it in relationship to herself, because she is too beautiful for her jealous hus-
and then forges an identity, something that includes band. Earl, a jukebox repairman, and Sire, who
her sexuality and the prominence of writing in her drinks beer, hold their wives tight lest they relate
life.... to anybody else. Things like this make Esperanza's
Esperanza actually loves her father, though as "blood freeze." She dreams of being held too hard.
with Holden's he is virtually absent from the nar- Once, after letting a man kiss her because he was
rative. As Marcienne Rocard points out [in "The "so old," she says he "grabs me by the face with
Remembering Voice in Chicana Literature (Amer- both hands and kisses me on the mouth and
icas Review)] Chicanas concentrate intensely on doesn't let go." So, like Holden and Huck, this girl
"human relationships between generations"- cares for others because of the violence done to
something not stressed in Twain and Salinger. Es- them (and herself) in all kinds of contexts....
peranza thinks her father is brave; he cries after the Ironically, Esperanza already has a family
death of a grandmother, and his daughter wants to whom she loves, but that does not free her, for her
"hold and hold and hold him." But this same father father is gone and her mother stuck. She ... longs
perpetuates a structure that traps women. The girl's for friends, talking first about a temporary friend
mother, for instance, has talent and brains, but lacks Cathy who then moves away. Later, she takes some
practical knowledge about society because, says of her sister's money to buy a share in a bike with
Esperanza, Mexican men "don't like their women her neighbors Rachel and Lucy so she can play with
strong." Her insight into an abusive father comes them, but that is fleeting. As she matures and sees
through her best friend Sally, whose father "just what is happening to people, she picks four trees,
V o I u m e 2 1 2 7
T h e Ho u s e o n M a n g o S t r e e t
which like her have "skinny necks and pointy el- a monkey garden (a modem Eden) among red
bows." Others, like Nenny, do not appreciate those clowns (bloodthirsty males). She appeals to Aunt
trees, but for Esperanza, they "teach," helping her Lupe (Guadalupe, after the Mexican Virgin
to realize that like them she is here and yet does Mother), who tells her to write, to create. In the end,
not belong. And like the trees Esperanza, who when Esperanza meets three aunts, or sisters (her
thinks in images, must continue to reach. Her goal, trinity), she in effect has a spiritual vision, one
like that of Huck and Holden, is not to forget her which she describes in concrete language. One is
"reason for being" and to grow "despite concrete" cat-eyed, another's hands are like marble, a third
so as to achieve a freedom that's not separate from smells like Kleenex. The girl uses these sights,
togetherness. smells, and touches to envision poetically her fu-
All three protagonists have friends who fail ture house. As with Huck and Holden, there is some-
them, usually in some kind of romantic context.... thing she does not fully understand. What she knows
is that through these comadres (co-mothers) she will
Esperanza's best friend Sally is ... a kind of give birth to something very new. Like the two male
romantic. She paints her eyes like Cleopatra and protagonists, she longs for a respect and compas-
likes to dream.... Tragically, it is Sally who betrays sion absent in her experiences on Mango Street, and
her friend and admirer in the monkey garden (an these women are her spiritual inspiration.
animal pen turned old car lot) where she trades the
boys' kisses for her lost keys, while all concerned The ending of Mango Street is also very sig-
laugh at Esperanza for trying to defend her friend nificant in terns of literary continuity. Just prior to
with a brick. Later, Sally leaves Esperanza alone at the end Esperanza meets the three aunts at the fu-
the fair next to the "red clowns" (at once comical neral of a sister of her friends Lucy and Rachel;
and tragic figures) where she is molested because they tell her she cannot forget who she is and that
her romantic friend "lied." Actually, the whole ex- if she leaves she must come back. In the end the
perience is a lie, given what she had been led to girl recognizes that she both belongs and does not
expect. belong to Mango street. Then she vows to return
to the house because of the "ones who cannot"
Still, all three have a moral center, a person leave. One reason for this is her writing, which has
they can count on, or should be able to.... made her strong. She plans to "put it down on pa-
[Esperanza] has a little sister, Nenny, for per and then the ghost does not ache so much."
whom she feels responsible. Nenny, however, is ... What this means relative to other women's novels
too little. Esperanza often refers to her as "stupid" is that she reverses a trend. In Our Nig, Nig is dis-
and in the chapter on "Hips," where Esperanza is sipated in the end. The protagonist of Yellow Wall-
becoming more aware of the sexual role of a paper goes crazy before literally crawling over her
woman's body, she says Nenny just "doesn't get dominating husband's body. Edna in The Awaken-
it." Her real hope comes in Aunt Lupe who is dy- ing swims to her death rather than face a culture
ing-"diseases have no eyes," says the young poet. that will not recognize her identity. Not so with Es-
In a game the girls invent, they make fun of Lupe, peranza. She is strong (something Mexican women
and for this Esperanza, like Huck, feels she will should not be), perfectly aware of the problems
"go to hell." Actually, it is Lupe who listens to the with a patriarchal culture, and because of her love
girl's poems and tells her to "keep writing." That for her people, albeit abused and dehumanized,
counsel becomes the basis of Esperanza's future vows to return, and it is the writing which gives
apart from Mango Street. her the strength....
It is important to recognize that the three nov- There is one other way in which Cisneros
els contain religious language that at once seems seems to look to her predecessors for literary and
to undercut traditional religion, and in the mouths cultural continuity, and that is the way she as an
of the young seems to say more than they realize.... author comes into the text....
For Esperanza, religion is a cultural thing; in In Mango Street Cisneros has created the voice
her Catholic world, God the father and Virgin of a child, who is also a poet, a writer. For the most
Mother are household terms. But for this young part that voice is consistent, but sometimes not.
poet, religion takes on mythic or poetic dimensions. Once when Esperanza is playing an outside voice
She sees herself, for instance, as a red "balloon tied puts her friends and herself in perspective:
to an anchor," as if to say she needs to transcend
present conditions where mothers are trapped and Who's stupid?
fathers abusive. She even sees herself molested in Rachel, Lucy, Esperanza and Nenny.
1 2 8 N o v e I s f o r S t u d e n t s
Th e H o u s e o n M a n g o S t r e e t
In this case it is the author who seems to be tion, "Who am I?" This search for knowledge, for
speaking. And when Lupe is dying, and Esperanza truth, and for personal identity is written about in
helps lift her head, suddenly we are inside Lupe: autobiographies and in bildungsroman fiction. For
"The water was warm and tasted like metal." Here years, though, the canon of United States literature
the author's presence is unmistakable. Perhaps Cis- has included predominantly the coming-of-age sto-
neros's most significant intrusion comes when Es- ries of white, heterosexual males. Where are the
peranza says that Mexican men do not "like their stories of the others-the women, the African
women strong"-a comment that belongs more to Americans, the Asian Americans, the Hispanics,
an adult than a child, and it seems to underpin the the gay males and lesbians? What differences and
whole novel.... similarities would we find in their bildungsromans?
So Cisneros, like Twain and Salinger, seems Many writers, silenced before, are now finding the
to enter the narrative to help define its ultimate strengths, the voices, and the market for publica-
meaning. Unlike the boys' quests, however, this tion to tell their stories.
novel is a collection of genres-essays, short sto- Chicano/a writers, like African Americans,
ries, poems-put together in one way to show Es- Asian Americans, and others, are being heard; in
peranza's growth, but in another to imitate the part- autobiography and in fiction, they are telling their
by-part building of an edifice. Indeed, the house on coming-of-age stories.... The House on Mango
Mango Street does not just refer to the place Es- Street by Sandra Cisneros (1989) [is one] such Chi-
peranza is trying to leave, but to the novel itself as cano/a [work] of fiction. [In this text,] Cisneros
"a house" which Esperanza as character and Cis- show[s] the forces-social and cultural-that shape
neros as author have built together. Huck may go and define [her] characters.... [The novel shows]
out to the territory, rejecting civilization, and the struggle of the Chicano/a people to find iden-
Holden may tell his story to gain the strength to re- tities that are true to themselves as individuals and
turn, but Esperanza through her writing has in fact artists but that do not betray their culture and their
redesigned society itself through a mythical house people.
of her own. This is no mean feat, considering that Anglos
In this regard, Lupe once told Esperanza to did not teach them to value their cultural heritage
"keep writing," it will "keep you free." At that time and experiences, that they were shown no Chi-
the girl did not know what she meant, but in the cano/a role models, that, in fact, they were often
end Esperanza says "she sets me free," so in a sense discouraged from writing. Cisneros says [in her
the house is already built-a monument to her peo- book, From a Writer's Notebook] that as a writer
ple and her sex.... Indeed, Esperanza is very dif- growing up without models of Chicano/a literature,
ferent from the other women in the text. She has she felt impoverished with nothing of personal
learned from them and not made their mistakes. So merit to say.
she is not trapped like her mother, Alicia, or Sally, As a poor person growing up in a society where
or the others. Like Huck and Holden, she is the ex- the class norm was superimposed on a tv screen, I
ample for other Chicana women whom Cisneros couldn't understand why our home wasn't all green
would have us take to heart. Indeed, as the witch lawn and white wood.... I rejected what was at hand
woman Elenita predicted earlier, Esperanza elects and emulated the voices of the poets ... big, male
voices ... all wrong for me ... it seems crazy, but ...
to build a "new house, a house made of heart." And I had never felt my home, family, and neighborhood
in the tradition of, but distinct from Huck and unique or worthy of writing about....
Holden, that is just what she has accomplished.
Cisneros, being an only daughter in a family
Source: Thomas Matchie, "Literary Continuity in Sandra of six sons, was often lonely. She read, in part, to
Cisneros's The House on Mango Street," in The Midwest
Quarterly, Vol. XXXVII, No. 1, Autumn, 1995, pp. 67-79. escape her loneliness. Cisneros reflects that her
aloneness "was good for a would-be writer-it al-
lowed ... time to think ... to imagine ... to read
Dianne Klein and prepare." Cisneros in "Notes to a Young(er)
In this excerpt, Klein describes the character
Writer" [The Americas Review] explains that her
reading was an important "first step." She says she
Esperanza 's coming ofage as a woman, a Chicana, left chores undone as she was "reading and read-
and, at least for now, a resident of Mango Street. ing, nurturing myself with books like vitamins."...
At birth, each person begins a search to know Cisneros' House on Mango Street is ... nar-
the world and others, to answer the age-old ques- rated by a child protagonist. Esperanza, the pro-
V o I u m e 2 1 2 9
T h e H o u s e o n M a n g o S t r e e t
tagonist, tells about her life on Mango Street; we Other houses on Mango Street do not live up
see her family, friends, and community, their daily to Esperanza's desires either, for they are houses
troubles and concerns. By the end of the story, she that "imprison" women. Many vignettes illustrate
has gained understanding about both herself and this. There is the story of Marin who always has to
her community/culture.... The House on Mango baby-sit for her aunt; when her aunt returns from
Street is the story of growing awareness which work, she may stay out front but not go anywhere
comes in fits and starts, a series of almost epiphanic else. There is also the story of Rafaela whose hus-
narrations mirrored in a structure that is neither lin- band locks her indoors when he goes off to play
ear nor traditional, a hybrid of fictive and poetic dominoes. He wishes to protect his woman, his
form, more like an impressionistic painting where "possession," since Rafaela is "too beautiful to look
the subject isn't clear until the viewer moves back at." And there is Sally whose father "says to be this
a bit and views the whole. Esperanza tells her story beautiful is trouble.... [H]e remembers his sisters
in a series of forty-four, individually titled vi- and is sad. Then she can't go out." Sally marries,
gnettes. Ellen McCracken [in Breaking Bound- even before eighth grade, in order to escape the
aries] believes that this bildungsroman, which she confinement and abuse of her father's house, but
prefers to label a "collection" rather than a novel, in the vignette, "Linoleum Roses," we see her dom-
"roots the individual self in the broader ... socio- inated as well in the house of her husband.
political reality of the Chicano/a community." She is happy.... except he won't let her talk on the
For Esperanza in The House on Mango Street, telephone. And he doesn't let her look out the win-
the notion of "house"-or a space of her own-is dow....
critical to her coming of age as a mature person She sits home because she is afraid to go outside
and artist. Ram6n Saldivar says [in Chicano Nar- without his permission.
rative] that this novel "emphasizes the crucial roles Esperanza sees, as Olivares notes, that "the
of racial and material as well as ideological condi- woman's place is one of domestic confinement, not
tions of oppression." At the beginning of the novel, one of liberation and choice." And so, slowly, cu-
Esperanza explains how her parents talk about mulatively, stroke by stroke, and story by story, Es-
moving into a "real" house that "would have run- peranza comes to realize that she must leave Mango
ning water and pipes that worked." Instead she lives Street so that she will not be entrapped by poverty
in a run-down flat and is made to feel embarrassed and shame or imprisoned by patriarchy.
and humiliated because of it. One day while she is
playing outside, a nun from her school walks by Another element of the bildungsroman is the
and stops to talk to her. appearance of a mentor who helps guide the pro-
tagonist....
Where do you live? she asked.
In The House on Mango Street there is an
There, I said pointing to the third floor.
ironic twist to the guidance of mentors, for often
You live there? Esperanza is guided by examples of women she
There. I had to look where she pointed-the third does not want to emulate, such as Sally and
floor, the paint peeling, wooden bars Papa had nailed Rafaela. [There] are several role models who some-
in the windows so we wouldn't fall out. You live times give her advice. They nurture her writing tal-
there? The way she said it made me feel like noth- ent, show her ways to escape the bonds of patri-
ing. archy, and remind her of her cultural and communal
Later in the novel, in a similar occurrence, a responsibilities. Minerva is a young woman who,
nun assumes that Esperanza lives in an even worse despite being married to an abusive husband, writes
poverty-stricken area than, in fact, is the case. poems and lets Esperanza read them. She also reads
Julian Olivares says [in Chicana Creativity and Esperanza's writing. Aunt Lupe, dying of a wast-
Criticism] thus the "house and narrator become ing illness, urges Esperanza to keep writing and
identified as one, thereby revealing an ideological counsels her that this will be her freedom. Alicia,
perspective of poverty and shame." Esperanza de- who appears in two stories, is, perhaps, the best role
sires a space of her own, a real home with warnth model. While she must keep house for her father,
and comfort and security, a home she wouldn't be she still studies at the university so she won't be
ashamed of. For Esperanza, the house is also a ne- trapped. Alicia also reminds Esperanza that Esper-
cessity; echoing Virginia Woolf, she needs "A anza is Mango Street and will one day return. Mc-
House of My Own" in order to create, a "house Cracken says that Alicia fights "what patriarchy ex-
quiet as snow ... clean as paper before the poem." pects of her" and
1 3 0 N o v e I s f o r S t u d e n t s
Th e H o u s e o n M an g o S t r e e t
at the same time represents a clear-sighted, non-mys- but at the community of women in a conspiracy of
tified vision of the barrio.... [S]he embodies both the silence ... silence in not denouncing the "real" facts
antipatriarchal themes and the social obligation to re- of life about sex and its negative aspects in violent
turn to one's ethnic community. sexual encounters, and complicity in romanticizing
and idealizing unrealistic sexual relations.
The story, "Three Sisters," is a kind of sub- Esperanza, triply marginalized by race, class,
versive fairytale. Esperanza attends the wake of her and gender, has lost her innocence. Yet, despite this
friends' baby sister and is suddenly confronted by pain and violation, she manages to tell her story.
three mysterious old women. These women exam- She has come of age, and she understands that in
ine Esperanza' s hands, tell her to make a wish, and the future she must serve both herself and her com-
advise, "When you leave, you must remember al- munity.
ways to come back.... [Y]ou can't forget who you
are... [C]ome back for the ones who cannot leave I will say goodbye to Mango.... Friends and neigh-
as easily as you." They direct her to remember her bors will say, what happened to that Esperanza? ...
They will not know I have gone away to come back.
responsibilities to her community. In this bil- For the ones I left behind. For the ones who cannot
dungsroman, Esperanza is reminded consistently out.
that the search for self involves more than mere
personal satisfaction. All of these women offer Source: Dianne Klein, "Coming of Age in Novels by
Rudolfo Anaya and Sandra Cisneros," in English Journal,
guidance to help Esperanza in her coming of age. Vol. 81, No. 5, September, 1992, pp. 21-6.
[The protagonist] must endure other rites of
passage to reach full personhood and understand-
ing....
Esperanza's rites of passage ... speak through
the political realities of Mango Street.... Her ma- Bebe Moore Campbell, "Crossing Borders," New York
Times Book Review, May 26, 1991, p. 6.
jor loss of innocence has to do with gender and
with being sexually appropriated by men. In the vi- Sandra Cisneros, "Interview with Sandra Cisneros," in Reed
gnette, "The Family of Little Feet," Esperanza and Dasenbrock and Feroza Jussawalla, Interviews with Writers
her friends don high heels and strut confidently of the Post-Colonial World, University Press of Mississippi,
1992.
down the street. They are pleased at first with their
long legs and grown-up demeanors, then frightened Eduardo F. Elias, "Sandra Cisneros," Dictionary of Literary
as they are leered at, yelled to, threatened, and so- Biography, Volume 122: Chicano Writers, Second Series
licited. McCracken says, "Cisneros proscribes a ro- edited by Francisco A. Lomeli and Carl Shirley, Gale Re-
search, 1992, pp. 77-81.
mantic or exotic reading of the dress-up episode,
focusing instead on the girls' discovery of the Eduardo F. Elias, "The House on Mango Street," Reference
threatening nature of male sexual power." Guide to American Literature, 3rd edition, edited by Jim
Kamp, Gale Research, 1994, p. 992.
Perhaps Esperanza's "descent into darkness" Eduardo F. Elias, "Sandra Cisneros," Reference Guide to
occurs in the story "Red Clowns." Unlike the tra- American Literature, 3rd edition, edited by Jim Kamp, Gale
ditional bildungsroman, the knowledge with which Research, 1994, pp. 200-02.
she emerges is not that of regeneration, but of
painful knowledge, the knowledge of betrayal and
physical violation. In this story, she is waiting for
Sally, who is off on a romantic liaison. Esperanza,
all alone, is grabbed and raped. Afterward, she says,
"Sally, make him stop. I couldn't make them go Pilar E. Rodriguez Aranda, interview in The Americas Re-
view, Spring, 1990, pp. 64-80.
away. I couldn't do anything but cry. I don't re-
An interview with Cisneros which focuses on the
member. It was dark.... [P]lease don't make me tell writing of The House on Mango Street as well as on
it all." In this story, Esperanza is also angry and the general trend of Latinas "reinventing themselves"
calls Sally "a liar" because through books and mag- in relation to their culture.
azines and the talk of women she has been led to Maria Elena de Valdes, "In Search of Identity in Cisneros's
believe the myth of romantic love. [In "The Poli- The House on Mango Street," in The Canadian Review of
tics of Rape," (The Americas Review)] Marfa Her- American Studies, Volume 23:1 (Fall), 1992, pp. 55-72.
rera-Sobek calls this story a "diatribe" that is di- Emphasizes the importance of Esperanza's "highly
rected not only at Sally, lyrical" narrative voice.
V o I u m e 2 1 3
T h e Ho u s e o n M a n g o S t r e e t
Erlinda Gonzalez-Berry and Tey Diana Rebolledo, "Grow- Claims that Cisneros "employs her imagery as a po-
ing Up Chicano: Tomas Rivera and Sandra Cisneros," in Re- etics of space," but reverses the conventional em-
vista Chicano-Riquena, Volume 13:34, 1985, pp. 109-19. phasis on the home as a site of comfort and the out-
Considers Cisneros' novel as an example of the grow- side world as a source of anxiety.
ing up story which forms a general theme in Chicano
literature. Renato Rosaldo, "Fables of the Fallen Guy," in Criticism in
Ellen McCracken, "Sandra Cisneros' The House on Mango the Borderlands: Studies in Chicano Literature, Culture and
Street: Community-Oriented Introspection and the Demys- Ideology, edited by Hector Calderon and Jose David Sal-
tification of Patriarchal Violence," in Breaking Boundaries: divar, Duke University Press, 1991, pp. 84-93.
Latina Writing and Critical Readings, edited by Anuncion Situates The House on Mango Street and Cisneros in
Horno-Delgado, Eliana Ortega, Nina M. Scott, Nancy the context of earlier narratives of cultural authen-
Saporta Steinbach, University of Massachusetts Press, 1989, ticity written by Latino writers featuring male war-
pp. 62-71. rior-heroes.
Discusses The House on Mango Street as a "mar-
ginalized text" which contradicts the individualistic Ram6n Saldivar, "The Dialectics of Subjectivity: Gender
values of the male-dominated literary canon. and Difference in Isabella Rios, Sandra Cisneros, and Cher-
Julian Olivares, "Sandra Cisneros' The House on Mango rie Moraga," in Chicano Narrative: The Dialectics of Dif-
Street, and the Poetics of Space," in Chicana Creativity and ference, University of Wisconsin Press, 1990, pp. 171-99.
Criticism: Charting New Frontiers in American Literature, Discusses the intersection of race, gender, and class
Arte Publico, 1988, pp. 160-69. in The House on Mango Street.
1 3 2 N o v e I s f o r S t u d e n t s