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The ESL Times / December, 2001
"Making Stories Inside My Head"
The House on Mango Street
Sandra Cisneros
Vintage Books 1991
By Carlos Ruiz-Santos
"I like to tell stories. I am going to tell you a story about a girl who didn't want to belong." Have you ever wanted to tell stories inside your head to invent yourself and your own world? Have you ever put down on paper your memories to own them forever? If you are the sort of person to do so, I'm quite sure you will like The House on Mango Street, a Sandra Cisneros's novel. Cisneros is a Mexican-American writer, today greatly admired by critics and beloved by children, young people, their parents, and grandparents. The House on Mango Street is a semi-biographical novel of a young Mexican-American girl growing up in the Latino section of Chicago. It tells the story of Esperanza Cordero, whose childhood neighborhood is filled with harsh realities and harsh beauty. Esperanza does not want to spend her life living in her neighborhood forever. She wants a different future; and she wants to be a famous writer. Each story Esperanza tells is vivid, moving, and sometimes heartbreaking; stories treasured in the bottom of a growing girl's alert heart but shared by Esperanza's only confidant: Cisneros herself.
The House on Mango Street may be for you, as it surely was for me, an excellent opportunity to rediscover our forgotten childhood world, with memories that are sometimes sunny and at other times smoky, but always filled with dreams. I could see Esperanza at different times in her life, either ugly and uneasy, or pretty and clever; but never resigned or timid before a world that held the lowest expectations possible for girls with her background.
With every page you read, Esperanza becomes more sympathetic as she opens her heart and explains why she does not want to belong to her red house and neighborhood. As Cisneros writes, "I make a story for my life, for each step my brown shoe takes;" Moreover, Esperanza transforms the ordinary circumstances around herself into extraordinary stories that lead her to become a gifted storyteller and a famous writer.
Readers of all ages will love Esperanza, especially readers who have some kind of knowledge about Latino settings. The House on Mango Street, like Esperanza's heart, shares openly its creative stories and unforgettable characters with everyone, no matter their background. Children may find themselves enchanted in some stories meeting new friends around Esperanza's neighborhood. Young people will meet similar desires and dreams to their own ones. Possibly while reading, you may re-encounter your childhood.
The House on Mango Street's fascination is based on everyone's willingness to remember those childhood memories. Esperanza's life experiences will help to remind us of the importance of having dreams, and that dreams do not go only with our childhood; they in fact keep us alive and hopeful all our lives.
Cisneros' work is distinctive because of her simplicity and sensitivity, and her precise storytelling power, also manifested in My Wicked Wicked Ways, and Loose Woman. It is clear that Cisneros draws everything and writes from her rich Latino heritage. Born in Chicago in 1954, the daughter of a Mexican father and a Mexican-American mother, Cisneros now lives in San Antonio with her two cats and is currently working on a new novel.
Finally, The House on Mango Street gives us an excellent opportunity to see inside the Latino experience of many immigrants and Mexican-American adults, young people, and children in modern American society. Certainly, reading The House on Mango Street will touch your sense of hope and give you courage. Undoubtedly you will recognize that every personal experience from your childhood until now is worthy of being written down in your heart and on paper. And lastly, maybe you will discover that you also have that special ability to transform people and things into an enhanced world after reading The House on Mango Street.
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