https://youtu.be/HuEKw71k_p4

Dear Sister Superior,

Why do you discriminate against me and my “kind” of people? I don’t live in that nasty run down home that you pointed out, I live in a red home on mango street. When I was young, I was so afraid of nuns like you but now I find your cruelty very unnecessary. My only desire was to seem like I could fit in by going to the canteen for once instead of going home like all the kids who are poor. The thought of the canteen excited me. It took a lot of convincing to get my mother to write that note. Though, in the end, the canteen wasn’t as great as I thought it was before. However, your attitude towards me caused a lot of humiliation by making me cry in front of all of my peers. All you could think about was that I either looked poor or that I am of a different race than you. I’m sure you have destroyed several young children’s confidence with your racist views . A child’s feelings should never be played with, children are extremely fragile and easily broken down. Especially because of all the horrible things I saw in my life time, I didn’t need your input with it. Plus, you didn’t know if my mom would not be at home during lunch time anymore you could have been forcing a child to go home without supervision. Always think about these kinds of things before you destroy another innocent child’s confidence and feeling of self-worth.

Sincerely, Esperanza

Young,

“There”

My sister is unfair

Pay for friends

Eat rice sandwiches

I can only pretend

Now I have legs

Use them to find a man

Only to wake up and have to cook ham and eggs

Just a kiss?

I’m still so young

Take me home, where ignorance is bliss

So many ladies

Trapped and confused

Make a man pick me up and buy me a mercedes

She’s so beautiful

But so dangerous

I am too young.

Coconuts and papayas taste like a better place. People will use anything as an escape. This includes Rafaela, “who drinks and drinks coconut and papaya juice on Tuesdays,” to escape her life. Each Tuesday she gives Esperanza and her friends a crumpled up dollar that represents her poverty to buy her a drink because she can’t leave by herself. Tuesday is the only day that she can be alone in her home without her husband, this is why she asks the children to get her a sugary drink because that’s the only way she can escape. Though, “she wishes there were sweeter drinks,” because the sweet drink may represent a sweeter man, a man who will treat her better than the husband who has trapped her and locked her away. However, “not bitter like an empty room, but sweet sweet like the island,” not bitter like her husband but sweet like a man who will let her go out with friends and dance whenever she wants. Also, “like the dance hall down the street where women much older than her throw green eyes easily like dice and open homes with keys,” symbolizes Rafaela’s resentment for her husband because she thinks, if these women that are much older than her can go and dance when they want to, why can’t she. She realizes that she is beautiful enough to get a better man,”And always there is someone offering sweeter drinks, someone promising to keep them on a silver string.” She knows that there are men out there that will cherish her, not lock her up in an empty house everyday. She also wonders why she was so unlucky as to be trapped with a man who wouldn’t take care of her.

“Rafaela who drinks and drinks coconut and papaya juice on Tuesdays and wishes there were sweeter drinks, not bitter like an empty room, but sweet sweet like the island, like the dance hall down the street where women much older than her throw green eyes easily like dice and open homes with keys.and always there is someone offering sweeter drinks, someone promising to keep them on a silver string.” (80)

Dear Mamacita,

I know you don’t speak much English but I know how you feel. You are unhappy, you feel trapped, but there’s nothing you can do about it. I think you’re beautiful and worth so much more than what you’re given. I’d like to look at all your shoes someday, just to keep you company. Some people like to say mean things about you like you’re too fat to leave your home and get down the flight of stairs or you should be called Mamasota but I think they’re mean and I try to stand up for you. You must be home sick. Do you miss your old house in Mexico? Was that house better than living in Mexico? Was that house better than living in a run down apartments with a man that finds you disgusting sometimes? I wish I could figure these things about you. You want to go back home, I wish I could help you feel more at home. I know how it feels to not belong, I don’t belong in my home either. My sisters and brothers are all so very different from me. You must have had so many friends back at home, I wish I could meet them. Did you even want to come to America? What brought you guys here? The only thing that keeps you in your old home must be your connection to Spanish. I’m sorry that, that’s all you have. Never let go of that part of you, no matter what your husband says. Don’t get upset that your son is probably never going to experience the world you grew up in, but don’t get upset about that.

Sincerely, Esperanza

In The House on Mango Street Cisneros uses symbolism to create an accurate representation of Esperanza’s time in her life between childhood and adulthood. The monkey garden at first gives the children of Mango Street a serene setting for the children. The garden almost represents a Garden of Eden feel, “this garden was a wonderful thing to look at in the spring.” After the monkey left, “the garden began to take over itself,” and originate back to its natural roots just like the earth was before humans came. The game hide and seek that Esperanza and her friends had played represents the child that resided inside of her. However, “this, I suppose, was the reason why we went there. Far away from where our mothers could find us,” symbolizes her new-found independence as a blooming adult. Cisneros plays back and forth between the idea of Esperanza being an adult and her being a child by describing scenes of her friends playing pretend about “there beneath the roots of soggy flowers were the bones of murdered pirates and dinosaurs,” and the idea of her “wanting to die,” as an adult would think about. The presence of Sally’s ultimately grown up attitude talked Esperanza completely out of her innocence, “play with the kids if you want…I’m staying here.” Throughout this entry, Esperanza looks back and wants to “go back with the other kids her were still jumping on cars,” as if she doesn’t want to yet let go of her childhood. Cisneros uses symbolism to describe a scene where Esperanza loses a little bit more of her innocence.