The List

(page 10 of 10)

THIS GIRL'S LIFE

The House on Mango Street (1984), by Sandra Cisneros

"One day I will go away. Friends and neighbors will say, What happened to that Esperanza? . . . They will not know I have gone away to come back. For the ones I left behind."

The story: In eloquent, if spare, language, Cisneros captures the social and economic problems plaguing a young Latina's poor Chicago neighborhood.

Why the book resonates: The house no longer stands in Cisneros's old neighborhood of Humboldt Park, but its real home is with those who found a voice through her adolescent Latina heroine, Esperanza. A reading-list staple in classrooms nationwide, the book—which Gwendolyn Brooks called "rich with music and picture"—continues to speak to generations of readers. "I am flabbergasted when people think art can't make a change in the world," Cisneros, 52, says today. "I know from these people that this book is making a change." In crafting Esperanza's universe, Cisneros combined memories from her own childhood with stories told to her by her students at a Pilsen high school and at Loyola University. The resulting collage of Chicago—as vibrant as it is troubled—is just as familiar today as it was a quarter century ago. "When Humboldt Park changed from a middle-class neighborhood to being one that was rundown and lower class, it was abandoned by the city of Chicago—and I saw that happen again and again," Cisneros says. "It's a story happening now, a story for our present time."

The author (born 1954): Grew up in Humboldt Park with six brothers. Formed friendship with Gwendolyn Brooks. Finished The House on Mango Street at age 28. Writes today from the backyard office of her pink house in San Antonio, surrounded by six dogs, four cats, and a parrot. 
—L. C.

 
 

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