About this site: This strives to offer a deeper, interdisciplinary approach to Sandra Cisneros' The House On Mango Street.  You will find information on Sandra Cisneros' biography, insight Esperanza'  identity crisis, an analysis of how Cisneros intermixes Spanish with English, and finally a glimpse into the history of Mexican American's immigration.

About the Author: As with most writers, Sandra Cisneros came from a strong family. She was born in 1954 to a Mexican father and a Chicana mother. Cisneros, who ironically grew up in a family of six brothers and a father, writes in one of her poems: "an unlucky fate is mine to be born woman in a family of men."  "She notes that her six brothers ‘paired off’ according to their ages and birth orders, leaving her ‘odd woman out forever’" (qtd. in Zumwalt 1). Obviously, she grew up in a predetermined role for female with "seven father" as she puts it (Zumwalt 1).

Because of the closeness of her father and her grandmother, Cisneros moved back to Mexico many times, which helped her to how she was both in the minority in the United States but in the majority in Mexico. However, the repeated moves also left Cisneros searching for permanence, which she found in her reading and books that became her "childhood and adolescent companions" (Zumwalt 1). Her most remembered stories that helped to shape her include "Six Swans, a story about the only daughter in a six sons" (Zumwalt 1).

Although Cisneros wrote in grade school, she did not become know as "the poet" until high school, when she edited the school literary magazine (Zumwalt 2). Her first step towards a writing career began in 1974, during her junior year at Loyola University in Chicago (Zumwalt 2). In the beginning, she "attempted to escape the ghost of poverty that followed her, and abandon the familiar voice she acquired at home with both a Spanish and English speaking parent" (Zumwalt 2). At this time, she tried to adapt a similar voice of the up-scale classmates with whom she attended college.

In a workshop entitled "On Memory and Imagination", Cisneros "discovered the voice she been suppressing all along without realizing it" (Zumwalt 2). She recalls in the workshop, "I realized that when we were talking about "our houses" we weren't talking about my house. I had really thought that when they talked about you in literature, that it was me. But in that awful moment, I realized they'd never meant me" (Zumwalt 3). In this realization, she developed the literary voice that separates her from the masses in literature.
After graduating from college, she spent three years teaching high school dropouts in an alternative school in the Chicano barrio of Chicago. She then worked at Loyola University with minority students, where her passion for writing was again sparked (Zumwalt 4). She soon received a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship that made it possible for her to write full time. Her first well known work that followed was The House on Mango Street and was awarded the Before Columbus American Book Award in 1985. She has written the following books:

• The House on Mango Street (1983)
• The Rodrigo Poems (1985)
• My Wicked Ways (1987)
• The Woman Hollering Creek (1991) –a collection of short stories
• Loose Women (1994)

Sandra Cisneros Search Starter- This site has links to major search engines that search for material about Sandra Cisneros

Jim Sangel's Sandra Cisneros Site

Voices From the Gaps: Women Writers of Color

Literary Approach

Main Characters:

• Esperanza-  Chicana narrator, protagonist
• Cathy-Girl- She  lives across the street and offers the run down of all the people in the community
• Nenny- Esperanza’s sister
• Rachel and Lucy- Sisters who share ownership of a bicycle with Esperanza
• Meme Ortis- Moves into Cathy’s house after she leaves
• Marin-Louie’s cousin from Puerto Rico
• Louie- A boy whose family lives under Meme Ortis
• Rosa Vargas- Mother of many children
• Sire-Boy who plays eye games with Esperanza
• Mamacita-  Lady who lives across the street who does not allow her children to speak English
• Sally- Esperanza's sexually mature friend
• Minerva- Writes poems and shares them with Esperanza

Literary Critics: A Review (under construction)

Helpful Web Site

Sandra Cisneros : Teacher Resource File

being revised

The House on Mango Street serves as a prime example of Latin-American literature because of the controversial topics it discusses and its appeal to both Americans and Mexicans.  In The House on Mango Street, Esperanza, a Chicano growing up in Chicago struggles to find her identity through the history of her name, the stereotypical influence from other women on Mango Street, and her literary voice.

Esperanza’s name, in "My Name" represents her most basic struggle with her Spanish-American identity.   Esperanza states, "In English my name means hope, in Spanish it means too many letters" (Cisneros 10). She also reveals that she is named after her grandmother, who like Esperanza was born in the "Chinese year of the horse which is supposed to be bad luck if you're born female because Chinese like Mexicans don't like their women strong" (Cisneros 10).  Julian Olivares states "Esperanza traces the reason for the discomfiture with her name to cultural oppression the Mexican males’ suppression of their women" (163). After this realization, Esperanza longs for a new name and identity. She states, "I would like to baptize myself under a new name more like the real me" (Cisneros 11). Olivares states she "prefers a name not culturally embedded in a dominating male centered ideology" (163).  This preference ultimately forces Esperanza to leave Mango Street, in search of a more promising future.

Esperanza also struggles to find her identity by overcoming the stereotypes which other women in the community exemplify.  Sally, an older girl on Mango Street, introduces Esperanza to sexuality and the supposed glamorous myth associated with femininity.  In "Sally," Esperanza develops an image of painted eyes and forbidden beauty. However, after her own rape, Esperanza sees Sally, who falls into the same trap as most of the other women on Mango Street, as some one who "got married too young and not ready, but married just the same" (Cisneros 101). Esperanza does not want to become trapped in the same situation in which Sally finds herself and uses Sally's situation as a learning experience and a negative model of relationships.   Gonzales argues, "Esperanza seems to understand the limitations of living just for male attention and the loneliness and passivity in feminine self objectivity" (84).  These limitations also add to Esperanza’s drive and need to leave Mango Street.

Cisneros also portrays Esperanza’s quest for an identity through the "idea of empowering the self by telling her own story and through her own literary voice" (Yarbro-Bejarno).   The stories Esperanza creates in her mind and the poems that she shares with Marin help her to express the person she hides on the  inside.  Yarboaro-Bejarano states, "The House on Mango Street captures the dialectic between self and community in Chicano writing. Esperanza finds her literary voice through her own cultural experience. She seeks self empowerment through writing, while recognizing her commitment to a community essential in connection herself with the power of women" (Gonzales 85). Her literary voice allows Esperanza to find her own identity and use her experience on Mango Street as a building experience. She states, "I put it down on paper and then the ghost does not ache so much. [Mango] holds me with both arms. She sets me free" (Cisneros 110).  For Esperanza, writing acts as her outlet and ultimately helps her to fully comprehend herself and the members of the Mango Street community.

Throughout the novel, Sandra Cisneros portrays the struggles of a Chicano looking for an identity free from the stereotypes of her culture.  Esperanza finds her identity through the women on Mango Street, her literary voice, and her connection to her grandmother's strong wilderness.  By the end of the book, Esperanza finds her literary voice and discovers the "Her power is her own. She will not give it away" (Voices 1).

“Send Me your tired, your poor, your hungry,” seems echo in the mind of every immigrant who has traveled to America.  Such strong convictions have struck a heart string in the people of underdeveloped countries and attracts them to the United States.  This attraction has caused a substantial increase in the number of Mexicans who have migrated across the border into the United States.  Today's immigrants and illegal aliens come to America looking for the American dream: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, which translates into money.  The residents of Cisnernos' The House on Mango Street reveal the conflict between the desire to acheive the American dream and the influence of ancestry.

Cisneros exposes the effects of Mexico's economic hardships and consequently how Americans create negative stereotypes about this population.  The 1990 census recorded 13,393,208 Mexicans in the United States which has been rising steadily for the past couple of years.  Unlike educated landowners and officials who fled to the United States during the Revolution, “immigration from Mexico has been driven be economic hardships in rural areas” (OakLand 1).  Oakland argues that “[s]tatistics show Mexican Americans as poorly educated, young and poor, and most of whom work for the lowest income at the least desirable jobs” (1).  Because Mexican Americans struggle to survive in America and adapt to the American culture, they commonly get by passed as worthless.  Marin states, "What difference does it make, he was not anything but another brazer that could not speak English"  when addressing the police about "Geraldo No Name."

[need a transition] Cisneros classically portrays the conflict between the pursuit of the American dream and being attached to ancestry through Mamacita and Esperanza.   Although the dreams that Mexican pursue might vary, his/her reasons for fleeing to the United States are the same: to flee poverty in search of prosperity in the infamous "American Pie".  Murguia argues that “Assimilationsits view Mexican immigration quite simply.  Immigrants are coming into the United States, a developed country in close proximity of the United States as the haven from other countries for hundreds of years in order to improve their socioeconomic standing” (3).  Esperanza longs for a house, “a real house,” which suggests the wealth associated with America.   Yet, the Mexican influence laces her American dream because she longs for a red house with white steps, not typical of American culture.  Similarly, Mamacita in the prose-poem “No Speak English” truly benefits from the money her husband makes in America (the American Pie).  This search for a better life and higher economic status stands out in Mamacita because her husband worked two jobs to pay for her to come to America.  Yet, Mexico still has a strong hold on her loyalty.  Mamacita longs for Mexico and asks, “Cuando, Cuando?” or When! When! Are we going back to Mexico?  Thus Cisneros shows how two cultures can be intermixed and influential.

Throughout the novel, Cisneros struggles to include the reasons for the hardships and stereotypes of Mango Street through her implicit references to Mexican immigration.  Through this effort, she strongly reminds the readers of the stereotypes that become associated with a certain set of people, and just how important keeping one's heritage become in trying to "fit in" with another culture.

Historical Links

Chicano History Time Line-  link to a time line of the history of Mexican Americans.
Hispanic Latino News Service - link to a popular news source of Latino News
Immigration Statistics -Statistics from the US Government.
INS Home Page

Aranda, Pilar.  "Sandra Cisneros Interview with Pilar E. Rodriquez Aranda." CITY:  Matuz, 1990.  63-65.

Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. New York: Vintage. 1984.

Dasenbrock, Reed.  "Sandra Cisneros Interview."  <http://acuniz.wheatonma.edu>.  16 April 1999.

Gonzales, Maria. Contemporary Mexican American Women Novelists.  New York: Peter Lang, 1996.  82-83.

MELUS.  Sandra Cisneros.  18 April 1997.  <http://www.III.hawaii.edu> 25 April 1999.

Oaklandapple.  29 April, 1999.

Olivares, Julian.  "Sandra Cisneros The House on Mango Street and the Poetic Space. " Creativity and Critisim.  Detroit:  Gale, 1992. 235-243.

Quintana, Alvina.  "Sandra Cisneros' The House On Mango Street:  An Appropriate Word, Sign and Space." USIA Winter Institue.  14 Feb. 1999.  <http://odin. english.udel.edu/josephk/usia/metlapr.htm> 27 April 1999.

Sagel, Jim.  "Sandra Cisneros: Conveying the Riches of the Latin American Culture is the Author's Literary Goal." Publishers Weekly.  29 March 1991.  <http://www.infotrac.com>  16 April 1999.

Voices From the Gaps: Women Writers of Color

Yarbro-Bejarno, Yvonne. Creativity and Critisim.  Detroit: Gale, 1992.  215-234.

Zumwalt, Delores.  "A House of My Own: Sandra Cisneros and the Art of Storytelling." TMU Library.  1 Feb. 1995.  <twu.edu/www/twu/library/zumwalt.html>  25 April 1999.