The role of strong female roles in literature is both frightening to some and enlightening to others. Although times have changed, Sandra Cisneros’ stories about Mexican-American women provide a cultural division within itself that reflects in a recent time. The cultural themes in Cisneros’s stories highlight the struggle of women who identify with Mexican-American heritage and the struggle in terms of living up to Mexican culture – as a separate ethnic body. The women in Sandra Cisneros’ stories are struggling with living up to identities assigned to them, while trying to create their own as women without an ethnic landscape. In Sandra Cisneros’ stories “Woman Hollering Creek: and “Never Marry a Mexican” the role of female identities that are conflicted are highlighted, in that they have to straddle two worlds at once as Mexican-American women. The author, Sandra Cisneros, grew up as a Mexican-American woman in Chicago, Illinois. Her mother was Mexican -American and her father was from Mexico; she makes a clear point the difference between the two cultures. She graduated from Loyola University in Chicago and from there enrolled in a Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa. Bad Boys, a book of poetry, was published by a small press company that specialized in Latino literature in 1980. It received little notice. But her first fiction collection, House on Mango Street, was published in 1984 and gained the noticed of the New York publishing establishment. “The work is organized, like Mango Street, around the central female protagonist, whose views of her extended family help to clarify her own character” (Perkins, 390). The story “Woman Hollering Creek” came from her 1991 book of stories entitled Woman Hollering Creek and Othe... ... middle of paper ... ...stand what they mean as far as the social and cultural implications; but it not difficult to understand the strength of the two female protagonists and the double standards of men. The stories of Sandra Cisnero center on the ideas that Mexican-American women have a hard time dividing themselves between two separate worlds, countries and cultures. Traditionally, Mexican and Chicano women are quiet, obedient and not sexual. American women are outgoing, do their best to be different from traditional standards and have freedom in their sex lives. In the stories “Woman Hollering Creek” and “Never Marry a Mexican,” this separation is explored in the mode of strong, female characters. The analysis shows that the struggle for a Mexican-American woman is real in modern times, but can be overcome with a strong female identity – as a woman undefined by her ethnic background.
Genaro Padilla, author of the article Yo Sola Aprendi: Mexican Women’s Personal Narratives from Nineteenth-Century California, expands upon a discussion first chronicled by the historian, H. H. Bancroft and his assistants, who collected oral histories from Spanish Mexican women in the 1870’s American West. Bancroft’s collection, however, did not come from this time period, but closer to the 1840s, a time where Mexican heritage still played a strong presence throughout most of California. These accounts, collected from many different women, in many various positions and lifestyles, shows just how muted the Mexican female voice could be during this era.
Sandra Cisneros “Never Marry a Mexican” and Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao are stories that reflect on the cultures in which the characters grew up in. In Never Marry, Clemencia, the narrator, reflects on her past sexual relations as well as her childhood. She speaks of her parents’ marriage and then transitions into her relationship with college professor and his son. In Oscar Wao, Yunior, the narrator, gives a second-hand retelling of Oscar’s experiences in New Jersey growing up as well as in the Dominican Republic. A person’s identity is largely influenced by their culture, this is especially the case in Hispanic cultures. The social constraints that these cultures place on social class, sexuality, and gender norms can be very detrimental to a person’s self-esteem.
Symbolism is the key to understanding Sandra Cisneros’ novel, “The House on Mango Street”. By unraveling the symbolism, the reader truly exposes the role of not only Latina women but women of any background. Esperanza, a girl from a Mexican background living in Chicago, writes down what she witnesses while growing up. As a result of her sheltered upbringing, Esperanza hardly comprehends the actions that take place around her, but what she did understand she wrote in her journal. Cisneros used this technique of the point of view of a child, to her advantage by giving the readers enough information of what is taking place on Mango Street so that they can gather the pieces of the puzzle a get the big picture.
This novel is a story of a Chicano family. Sofi, her husband Domingo together with their four daughters – Esperanza, Fe, Caridad, and Loca live in the little town of Tome, New Mexico. The story focuses on the struggles of Sofi, the death of her daughters and the problems of their town. Sofi endures all the hardships and problems that come her way. Her marriage is deteriorating; her daughters are dying one by one. But, she endures it all and comes out stronger and more enlightened than ever. Sofi is a woman that never gives up no matter how poorly life treats her. The author- Ana Castillo mixes religion, super natural occurrences, sex, laughter and heartbreak in this novel. The novel is tragic, with no happy ending but at the same time funny and inspiring. It is full of the victory of the human spirit. The names of Sofi’s first three daughters denote the three major Christian ideals (Hope, Faith and Charity).
“Such a funny name for a creek so pretty and full of happily ever after” (Cisneros,1991, p.248).The story “Woman Hollering Creek" by Sandra Cisneros described the lives of Mexicans in a Chicago neighborhood. She depicts the life that women endure as Latino wives through her portrayal of the protagonist—Cleofilas. Cisneros, a Mexican-American, has given Cisneros a chance to see life from two different cultures. Cisneros wrote the story from a woman’s perspective, demonstrating the types of conflicts many women face as Latino wives.
Erika Lopez’s Flaming Iguanas addresses various constitutions of American identity, including ethnicity, gender, and sexuality. The protagonist, Jolene, is illustrative of how these constitutions of identity are complicated as she travels west. In particular, traveling westward typically consists of white men who reject the constraints of middle class life and decide to get on the road in hopes of finding selfhood. Flaming Iguanas demonstrates that gender, class, and ethnicity tie into the ability or inability to finding one’s self of self. Therefore, Jolene is unable to find her true sense of self because she is a woman. Lopez directs her readers’ attention to situations in her protagonist’s life where her mixed ethnicity, and ambivalent
Martinez, Demetria. 2002. “Solidarity”. Border Women: Writing from la Frontera.. Castillo, Debra A & María Socorro Tabuenca Córdoba. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 168- 188.
The struggle to find a place inside an un-welcoming America has forced the Latino to recreate one. The Latino feels out of place, torn from the womb inside of America's reality because she would rather use it than know it (Paz 226-227). In response, the Mexican women planted the seeds of home inside the corral*. These tended and potted plants became her burrow of solace and place of acceptance. In the comfort of the suns slices and underneath the orange scents, the women were free. Still the questions pounded in the rhythm of street side whispers. The outside stare thundered in pulses, you are different it said. Instead of listening she tried to instill within her children the pride of language, song, and culture. Her roots weave soul into the stubborn soil and strength grew with each blossom of the fig tree (Goldsmith).
Intertwined in allusions to women of Mexican history and folklore, making it clear that women across the centuries have suffered the same alienation and victimization, Cisneros presents a woman who struggles to prevail over romantic notions of domestic bliss by leaving her husband. In the story Woman Hollering Creek, Sandra Cisneros discusses the issues of living life as a married woman through a character named Cleófilas; a character who is married to a man who abuses her physically and mentally. Cisneros reveals the way the culture puts a difference between a male and a female, men above women. In Woman Hollering Creek, we see a young Mexican woman, who suddenly moves across the border and gets married. The protagonist, Cleófilas’ character is based on a family of a six brothers and a dad and without a mom, and the story reveals around her inner feelings and secrets.
Gloria Evangelina Anzaldúa is a Mexican-American female known as a writer, homosexual feminist, activist, and philosopher since early 1980s. She wrote “Borderlands La Frontera”, a semi-autobiographical text in 1987. Her book is very fascinating because of asserted literature of different genres on the tri-cultural woman who were always oppressed and suffered from the cultural norms that were dominated by men, which places sociocultural limitations on women. She argues how she was different from the other women from her own childhood. In contrary, she provided the factual assessment of how should women need to act to improve their sociocultural status. Her tone was very calm and profound throughout the book. In the meantime, “Woman Hollering
The Women of House on Mango Street and Bread Givers Sandra Cisneros was born in Chicago and grew up in Illinois. She was the only girl in a family of seven. Cisneros is noted for her collection of poems and books that concentrate on the Chicano experience in the United States. In her writings, Cisneros explores and transcends borders of location, ethnicity, gender and language. Cisneros writes in lyrical yet deceptively simple language.
Writing in the 20th century was great deal harder for a Chicano then it was for a typical American at this time. Although that did not stop this author, Sandra Cisneros. One of her famous novels, Woman Hollering Creek was a prime example of how a combined culture: Mexican-Americans, could show their pride and identity in this century. In conjunction, gave the opportunity for women to speak their voice and forever change the culture of Latino/a markets. Not only did it express identity/gender roles of women and relationships, but using these relationships to combine the cultures of Mexican and American into a hybrid breed. This novel, should have been a view-point for the future to show that there is more to life than just gender and race. Concluding this, the articles that helps define this is “The Latino/a Canon and the Emergence of Post-Sixties Literature” and “What is called Heaven”.
The eternal endeavor of obtaining a realistic sense of selfhood is depicted for all struggling women of color in Gloria Anzaldua’s “Borderlands/La Frontera” (1987). Anzaldua illustrates the oppressing realities of her world – one that sets limitations for the minority. Albeit the obvious restraints against the white majority (the physical borderland between the U.S. and Mexico), there is a constant and overwhelming emotional battle against the psychological “borderlands” instilled in Anzaldua as she desperately seeks recognition as an openly queer Mestiza woman. With being a Mestiza comes a lot of cultural stereotypes that more than often try to define ones’ role in the world – especially if you are those whom have privilege above the “others”.
In the novel, The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros describes the problems that Latino women face in a society that treats them as second class citizens. A society that is dominated by men, and a society that values women for what they look like, and not for what is on inside. In her Novel Cisneros wants us to envision the obstacles that Latino women must face everyday in order to be treated equally.
...Halevi-Wise, Yael (1997). Story-telling in Laura Esquivel's Como Agua Para Chocolate. The Other Mirror: Women’s Narrative in Mexico, 1980-1995. Ed. Kristine Ibsen. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1997. 123-131.