My favourite book - By Maria (one of my American interns).

The House on Mango Street is a conglomeration of stories: tears, whispers, dramas, all witnessed or experienced by the author herself, Sandra Cisneros. Cisneros is an American writer whose works deal with the formation and struggles of Chicana identity. Her story, The House on Mango Street, covers a year in the life of a young Mexican-American girl, Esperanza. Each vignette features a formative moment in Esperanza’s life: moving to Mango, her desire to change her name, wearing heels, her determination to become more than a woman in the kitchen, waiting by the window.

The House on Mango Street is my favorite American novel because it gives voice to the confusion and disillusion that stem from internal conflict. Esperanza is Chicana; she lives two cultures, loving both but never being able to find contentment with either one. Her Mexican family limits her because, as she puts it, “the Mexicans don’t like their women strong.” Yet, the American system has literally confined her to the inner-city of Chicago. Esperanza dreams of breaking free from Mango Street, but she can’t. She feels utterly trapped, but, as her name suggests, she hasn’t given up hope. Instead, she explains: “I have begun my own quiet war. Simple. Sure. I am one who leaves the table like a man, without putting back the chair, or picking up the plate.” Esperanza’s “quiet war” is inspirational, but it isn’t unique to Mango Street.

The trapped women of Mango Street represent the trapped women in real life: those in inner-cities, those trapped between cultures, those trapped by expectation. These women are everywhere, but they are given little to no representation in literature. In The House on Mango Street, Esperanza’s story is full of intimate familiarity; I myself am Chicana, and I recognize my own struggles in Esperanza’s experiences. Yet, Esperanza’s internal conflict is not only felt by Chicanas or Latinas; it is the pain and the hardship that all women face—its meaning transcends the words on the page. The House on Mango Street teaches readers to fight the system, stereotypes, and expectations. It teaches women to break free from their trap—their Mango Street—and once they find their freedom, to return to help the women they have left behind.