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Week 10 – Sandra Cisneros
Sandra Cisneros
Novelist
Activist
Poet
Teacher
House of mango Street 1984, re-released 1989
One of the first authors to emerge in a new generation of writers
Writes on relationships between Spanish family and the Anglo
world
First language is Spanish
Born in Chicago in 1954
Mexican father and Mexican-American mother
6 brothers
Her novels deal with common themes: accommodation, food, job
issues facing Chicana people etc
She also deals with life in deprived small communities (Barrio’s),
deprived both socially and economic and she writes about ways to
escape from this life
Trying to take pride in the Chicana identity along with integrate
into an Anglo community
Taught at University of California, Berkeley and the University of
Michigan
Writer-in-Residence at Our Lady of the Lake University in San
Antonio, Texas
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Bad boys
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Cisneros, Sandra (1984), The House on Mango Street, Houston:
Arte Público, Second edition: Cisneros, Sandra (1989), The House
on Mango Street, New York: Vintage
Cisneros, Sandra (1987), My Wicked, Wicked Ways, Bloomington,
IN: Third Woman Press,
Cisneros, Sandra (1991), Woman Hollering Creek and Other
Stories, New York: Random House,
Cisneros, Sandra (1994), Hairs = Pelitos, New York: Knopf,
Cisneros, Sandra (1994), Loose Woman: Poems, New York: Knopf,
Cisneros, Sandra (2002), Caramelo, or, Puro cuento, New York:
Knopf,
Cisneros, Sandra (2004), Vintage Cisneros, New York: Vintage,
Cisneros, Sandra (2011), Bravo Bruno, Italy: La Nuova
Frontiera (Italian)
Cisneros, Sandra (2012), Have You Seen Marie?, New York:
Vintage
Cisneros, Sandra (2015), A House of My Own, New York: Knopf,
Identity politics / Chicana
Chicana/ Chicano – origin is disputed, seems to date back to the
1900’s to the Spanish speaking people of the south of America
Began to become more popular in the 60-70’s when identity
politics emerged
1974 – Protest over pay united Chicana peoples

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http://www
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com/2012/10/21/chicano_n_199022
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Anzaldúa - Borderlands/ La Frontera
(border in Spanish)
Also see Lorna Dee Cervantes – poet
Cisneros clears the way for Chicana writers to do what they
wanted to do, she is important in identity politics
She is happy for her success to encourage other Chicana writers
to be recognized
Origin of the Chicana political movement goes back into American
history
A lot of the South west USA was then in Mexico
The republic of Texas was annexed by the USA in 1845
War broke out in 1846
In 1847 US troops occupies Mexico City
California declared independence in 1848
The war officially ended with the February 2, 1848, signing in
Mexico of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
...
Rosa Linda Fregoso
Characterization of the family in The House on Mango St
First story “we didn’t always live on Mango St, before that we
lived on Loomis” This establishes a lot of important re-occurring
themes – problems with landlords, accommodation, constant
moving, she doesn’t remember where she lived, she remembers
moving – Also their extended family grows, these people aren’t
necessary blood relations (not made clear) but they are treated as
such – Establishes a sense of community among the MexicanAmerican’s
Cisneros is not always praising in Mango St e
...
“girls only noticed
wearing high heels” assumption on how girls are supposed to
dress, act, look etc
Short, quick sentences – how a child would talk
Clear divide between boy and girl children

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The House on Mango Street – Vignette 1
Positives – no rent, people downstairs, no shared yard –
acknowledges that the house is theirs even though its not
the house she imagined in her dreams
...

Her central identity is caught up in materialism, she sees
buying the house as a step up in progress from renting and a
step up from poverty
She realizes the limitations of where she lives by an
authority figure out of the community (nun) – in the
community they are all the same and so on one level – when
someone form outside the Mexican-American community
comes in, they make her feel inferior
...
Esperanza doesn’t want to inherit her place by
the window, she doesn’t want to be looking out at others living
life stuck in a house as a wife and mother (stereotype), she wants
to be different, she wants to be out there living life
...

She doesn’t want to change her name to an Anglo name, the
names she chooses are Spanish sounding
She chooses a Spanish sounding name as she isn’t ashamed of her
social heritage, she wants a new identity – to re-invent herself
maybe
Name is linked to identity – sounds uncomfortable “made out of
tin and hurt the roof of their mouths”
Your name is a marker of difference
Why put names and the great-grandmothers story together?
Identity – she isn’t going to show the world who she really is until
she gets a new name and one where she can be herself, a name
which matches who she is
...
She wants to break away from her name, from the
tradition
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By having her grandmothers name she
also gets the label, she wants something different –she wants to
identify herself and not be identified who her great grandmother
was (oppressed wife looking out of the window)

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