Esperanza Rising
Makayla compton
Being an immigrant, you have to leave your old life behind,and you have to leave all your memories behind. In the book Esperanza Rising Pam Munoz Ryan, she and her family were forced to move to California, and she had to leave all the memories from Papa and her home in Mexico behind. Although Esperanza faced many different challenges, the hardest ones were dealing with Mama having valley fever and fighting with Marta and the other strikers. The first challenge Esperanza faced as an immigrant was when mama got valley fever, ‘’ Esperanzas voice strangled with fear all she could do was whisper the doctors uncertain word if she survives.’’ This quote shows that Esperanza is scared that mama might die, since
Esperanza finally comes to the conclusion that she does not need to fit into the mold of Mango Street. She also realizes that by making her own world, she can do bigger and better things and come back to help others on Mango Street. Not everybody can fit into the same mold and Esperanza made her own. . Esperanza leaving shows that she is a leader and hopefully she will have the others from Mango Street follow in her path. Maybe other people will fit into Esperanza’s mold or they will use her as an example. Esperanza used the other women as an example to make something of herself so all of the negative people she meets and has in her life, they made her the person she wanted to be.
Esperanza begins her journal by stating where she has been and where she has temporarily ended at. When she finally moved with her family, Esperanza immediately realizes that her place in the world was not going to be in the “small and red”
Women are seen as failure and can’t strive without men in the Mexican-American community. In this novel you can see a cultural approach which examines a particular aspect of a culture and a gender studies approach which examines how literature either perpetuates or challenges gender stereotypes. Over and over, Esperanza battled with how people perceived her and how she wished to be perceived. In the beginning of the book, Esperanza speaks of all the times her family has moved from one place to another. “Before that we lived on Loomis on the third floor, and before that we lived on Keeler.
Esperanza, the most liberated of the sisters, devoted her life to make other people’s lives better. She became a reporter and later on died while covering the Gulf Crisis. She returned home, to her family as a spirit. At first, she spoke through La Llorona, a messenger who informed La Loca that her sister has died. All her family members saw her. She appeared to her mother as a little girl who had a nightmare and went near to her mother for comfort. Caridad had conversations with her about politics and La Loca talked to her by the river behind their home.
Esperanza and her family move into a poor neighborhood in Chicago. “Bricks are crumbling in places, and the front door is swollen you have to push hard to get in. There us no front yeard, only four little elms the city planted by the curb. Our back is a small garage for the car we don’t own yet (Cisneros, 4).” The reader learns that Esperanza and her family are also from Mexico. “Look at that house, I said, it looks like Mexico. Rachel and Lucy look at me like I’m crazy, but before they can let out a laugh, Nenny says: Yes, that’s all Mexico right. That’s what I was thinking exactly (Cisneros, 18).” As an immigrant family, Esperanza’s family is struggling to make ends meet in Chicago. “I could’ve been someone someday, you know? My mother says sighs. She has lived in the city her whole life. She can speak two lanugages. She can sing an opera. She knows how to fix a T.V. But she doesn’t know which subway train to take to get downtown. I hold her hand very tight while we wait for the train to arrive (Cisneros, 90).” This is also a reference of space and time that is associated with the time period of
Esperanza Rising, by Pam Munoz Ryan is a novel about prejudice. Prejudice is when a superior being looks down on colored, sex, lower classes or different races of people. There were many obstacles in this novel that dealt with racism and mistreatment with Mexicans. Mexican immigrants in the 1930's suffered greatly because of the prejudice in the hearts and minds of the farm owners, lawmakers, and the American people.
Esperanza begins as a very wealthy girl in Mexico, and doesn’t think about how lucky she is to have the privileges that she has. She can have almost anything she wants and has to do little work. Esperanza barely even thinks about the lower classes. They are not part of her life. But when her ranch is burned down and her father killed, she has to leave Mexico and enter the United States as an illegal immigrant. But by doing so, she is forced into contact with many people far less wealthy and well-off than her. When Esperanza enters Zacatecas to board the train, she is surprised that they are not in the fancy section. Instead, they are in a car with peasants and beggars. “Esperanza had never been so close to so many peasants before. When she went to school, all of her friends were like her. When she went to town, she was escorted and hurried around any beggars. And the peasants always kept their distance. That was simply the way it was. She couldn’t help but wonder if they would steal her things.” (p. 67). Esperanza has an obvious suspicion of the peasants during her train ride. She tells her mother that she cannot travel in this car , and that the people didn’t look trustworthy. A little bit into the trainride ...
Esperanza Rising is a fiction novel about a young girl named Esperanza Ortega. The story first takes place in the mid 1920’s, years after the Mexican Revolution, on a ranch in Aguascalientes, Mexico. Esperanza Ortega is from a wealthy family, as her father is an affluent landowner. However, Esperanza’s father is killed by outlaws who still remained resentful to landowners after the Mexican revolution ended. Thereafter, the Ortega family continues to experience more struggles which causes them to escape to California during the time of the Great Depression. Esperanza is faced with new challenges of a drastically different lifestyle full of manual labor, financial and economic hardship, and personal battles as she lives in a labor camp in California. As time passes, a situation occurs which puts Esperanza’s family in jeopardy, in doing so, Esperanza takes course in this new challenge to save her family.
Even if you are rich, you have to go through bad news. Bad news comes in everyone’s life. In the book Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan, Esperanza used to be in Mexico living her happy and rich life. Her
Bad things can happen to good people and your life can get better are some of the greatest themes of Esperanza Rising. For example, in the last sentence of the novel, Esperanza tells Isabel, ”Do not ever be afraid to start over.”(253) This quote was almost the same statement Abuelita told Esperanza while crocheting a blanket, but Esperanza never thought she would turn back to it, until Papa died and sure enough, Esperanza didn’t want to start over. She held on to everything from her magnificent, princess-like life, especially her doll. She didn’t know her life would never be the same again, but after living in California for a while, she looked back at what Abuelita told her and learned to let go of her past, even giving her favorite, special doll from Papa, to Isabel. Papa’s death broke Esperanza to pieces, but when she moved to California she took a turn for the better because she learned a lot of everyday skills, such as sweeping, cleaning clothes, and how to work which benefitted her and she embraced her life and enjoyed everyday.
At first, Esperanza is young, insecure, and immature. Her immaturity is apparent when she talks about her mom holding her, saying it is, “sweet to put your nose into when she is holding you and you feel safe” (Cisneros 6-7). This shows Esperanza’s insecurity because her mom is still a big comfort source to her. She feels a false sense of comfort because her mom is there and will protect her. In addition, Esperanza’s immaturity is shown through her dislike for outsiders of the neighborhood when she says, “They are stupid people who are lost and got here by mistake” (Cisneros 28). This indicates how defensive and protective Esperanza is towards her barrio by calling outsiders stupid for reacting the way they do, even though she dislikes Mango Street....
...will pack my bags of books and paper. One day I will say goodbye to Mango. I am too strong for her to keep me here forever. One day I will go away.” (Cinceros 110) This shows how Esperanza needs to break free of Mango Street and move on because Mango Street has nothing more to offer a young free mind like Esperanza. She will move far away so she can continue on with her American Dream as one person and not have the weight of her family’s American Dream on her shoulders.
Esperanza, a Chicano with three sisters and one brother, has had a dream of having her own things since she was ten years old. She lived in a one story flat that Esperanza thought was finally a "real house". Esperanza’s family was poor. Her father barely made enough money to make ends meet. Her mother, a homemaker, had no formal education because she had lacked the courage to rise above the shame of her poverty, and her escape was to quit school. Esperanza felt that she had the desire and courage to invent what she would become.
Many are confined in a marriage in which they are unhappy with, and are reductant to make a change. Some are committed to make a change for themselves. Esperanza ponders each one of these women's lives. Through each role model Esperanza gains crucial life lessons on how to overcome different life hardships. Through some women like her great-grandmother and Ruthie, Esperanza learns she must take control her fate, to avoid marrying young, and not let a male figure dictate her future. Other women like Alicia, Esperanza learns to keep pursuing goals in life and to take control of her destiny no matter what obstruction may lay ahead. From Esperanza’s role models, the moral lesson that can be taken away is to be proactive about your life and to shape your own future. Everyone is a role model to somebody in their life. Strive to leave a positive message behind for the ones shadowing in your
Although Esperanza is constantly reaffirming that she wants to move away from Mango Street, we know by the end novel that she will one day return to help those who will not have the opportunities Esperanza has had in her life. Indeed, in the closing pages Esperanza admits that she cannot escape Mango Street. She can never again call it home, but it has influenced her dreams, formed her personality, and she has learned valuable life lessons from its inhabitants. That is why, explains Esperanza, she tells stories about the house on Mango Street, revealing the beauty amidst dirty streets and unveiling her true inner self, the peace of knowing that her “home is where her heart is.”