It is hard to recognize the lives of those in different cultures, without having an image that is compromised by one’s own upbringing. We are inherently biased, in that we believe our own lifestyle and surroundings throughout our lives to be the “norm”, and this subsequently casts a shadow over us when we peer into the lives of those brought up in radically different cultures and classes.
One of the greatest tools for better understanding others is through literature. The reader can be transported into Hispanic culture under the looming shadow of poverty through this chronicle of a couple of crucial years in the life of a young Chicana girl named Esperanza.
What is especially hard to recognize is the tension between opposing cultures, in that there is certain animosity in America directed towards those that do not adhere to what is “socially acceptable”. This social acceptability can at times be defined as, not to be crude, but how white one’s lifestyle is.
As Esperanza states in this fictional tale, “Those who don’t know any better come into our neighborhood scared.” (Cisneros 28) Despite it being fiction, this problem has its roots in reality. Many find cultures different from their own, such as Hispanic and African American, to be off-putting.
While the reaction to being unnerved sometimes takes place as racism, far more often people will act uncomfortable and put up a wall between themselves and the culture that they view as if from a different planet.
So many individuals are closeminded, viewing their individual opinions to be what is acceptable without opening their heart to the unknown. With this wall put up by the majority culture, often the same response is given back, such as how Esperanza says “All brown all around, we are safe.
But watch us drive into a neighborhood of another color and our knees go shakity-shake and our car windows get rolled up tight and our eyes look straight. Yeah. That is how it goes and goes.” (Cisneros 28) It’s a shame, a societal problem with roots that we might never unearth.
This palpable tension between opposing cultures and classes seems unbeatable, with no clear solutions. I find beauty in the world around me, with the cultures and beliefs of this world being endless strands weaving together to create the tapestry that is human existence.
All cultures mirror one another, in that they are a pure form of human expression, a conglomerate act by a populace to combine the many into a singular human consciousness. Culture is a sense of communion, the ability of humans to empathize and reach out to others.
All cultures are definitively human, and the surface level qualities that make separate cultures unique blind people to the fact that all cultures share the same beating heart. I found a look into the paradoxical life of a Chicano youth beautiful, in that despite the darkness to be found in her upbringing, Esperanza represented the capacity of humans to aspire to be something greater. To be something more.
It is easy to feel trapped. We all are washed away by the waves of our own sorrow, weighed down to the depths by our own despair. And yet, it is human nature to fight. To not give in when faced with certain calamity. Esperanza represents the indominable human will, symbolizes how we struggle against the waves, fight for air even when we feel like drowning.
She feels suffocated by her surroundings, fears a life of longing and sadness that could lay ahead of her if she follows the same path as many women around her. Yet she maintains hope for a better tomorrow, hope that she might one day escape from Mango Street.
In her first-person description of herself, Esperanza says “Everything is holding its breath inside me. Everything is waiting to explode like Christmas. I want to be all new and shiny. I want to sit out bad at night, a boy around my neck and the wind under my skirt. Not this way, every evening talking to the trees, leaning out my window, imagining what I can’t see.” (Cisneros 73)
She wants the unknown. She knows beyond the horizon is something better, something that might give her life meaning. She is not content with a lifeless life, always imagining what might have been. Imagining what she can’t see.
She develops a steadfast resolve to reach this great mystery, to wrench herself from the claws of her poverty-stricken upbringing. She is a girl not willing to sit back and live in her imagination; she wishes to make her imagination reality. Esperanza is human desire personified; in that I empathize with her immensely.
We all see the great sea of sorrow before us, and yet we dive in, nonetheless. We all break our bones against the waves. We all scream at the sky. Yet Esperanza, like myself, believes our fate is not written in the soil beneath our soles, or in the waves we fight against, but in the stars that linger beyond our reach, tempting us with their endless possibility.
Towards the end of the novel, Esperanza is presented with the beautiful statement “When you leave, you must remember to come back for the others. A circle, understand? You will always be Esperanza. You will always be Mango Street. You can’t erase what you know. You can’t forget who you are.” (Cisneros 105)
This novel is not solely about moving onto something greater, not only about escaping one’s surroundings both past and present. I believe this is also a novel about finding beauty in the darkness.
We are defined by our past, insofar that we would not be who we are without what has happened. A cliché statement perhaps, but true regardless. We can each separately desire a new beginning, wish to be reborn as if a phoenix from the ashes. But we are quick to forget where those ashes came from.
Fast to forget what serves as the kindling for those flames, what served as the catalyst for that aspiration to be something more. We are everything we have experienced, and more. To take one’s youth is to take their identity. We cannot burn everything we know down, tear down the foundations of our very knowledge and beliefs.
As there will always be something that still stands, unmarred by the flames. There is beauty to be found even in the worst of times, and the many trials and tribulations of Mango Street are Esperanza just as my childhood is me.
I find this beautiful quotation to simultaneously serve as both a mirror and a window. Her childhood is vastly different from my own, yet we are one in the same. We share the same human aspiration to succeed, and yet moving on does not mean fully letting go of our past. We are two separate stories, yet both reach the same conclusion. I believe are all Esperanza in our own way. When we look to the future, we must still embrace the past.
Societal class is a great divider. We possess a secular point of view, rarely seeing others that might stray too far from our little bubble. We see them, and yet they remain unseen. We only truly, fully see that which we wish to, and we rarely wish to extend our thoughts to our fellow man should he be too far from our line of sight.
We are content soaking up the sun, while rarely recognizing those that lay dormant in the shadows we cast. As Esperanza puts it,“People who live on hills sleep so close to the stars they forget those of us who live too much on earth.” (Cisneros 86)
For those that wallow in the mud, it is hard not to resent those above them. Humans are uniquely capable of empathy, and yet rarely is a hand extended down to those below us. It is easy to forget that those as the bottom often feel invisible.
As if they are just the shadows personified, and we the light. But this is not true. For to be in the darkness does not inherently mean one is darkness. We all deserve the light in our own way. We all stumble, and fall, and yet we all deserve to meet in the light of the sun.
I believe this novel explored an upbringing in a dilapidated world very aptly. To understand Esperanza, a person must understand her surroundings. For if there is no Mango Street, then there is no Esperanza.
