Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Poverty and the effects on children
Contributory factors that lead to poverty
Relationship with poverty and crime
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Poverty and the effects on children
Did you know that children living in poorer communities have a higher risk of gaining physical health problems, such as Chronic, poor nutrition, or risky behaviors? There are many social issues that have occurred in our history. One of them is poverty, and that lifestyle is not a good thing to have, although many Americans have had to deal with it, some including full-time workers, children, seniors, disabled Americans, and veterans. The House on Mango Street, written by Sandra Cisneros, is a book that represents many social issues including this one. It is about a young girl who lived to the United States in search for the American dream, only to find that it is nothing but a nightmare for her. Poverty is a serious issue and connects to the …show more content…
As it is written in the book, “Where do you live? She asked. There, I said pointing up to the third floor. You live there? There. I had to look to where she pointed-the third floor, the paint peeling, wooden bars Papa had nailed on the window so we wouldn’t fall out. You live there? The way she said it made me feel like nothing. There. I lived there. I nodded.” (Cisneros). As can be read there in a small part of the vignette, it talks about how the nun is pointing as Esperanza’s house and says it kind of in an uncomfortable way. It makes Esperanza feel like she is a nobody, below everyone else, as she lives in the poverty state. This connects to the article by showing how miserable teens can be when their family live in poverty. Along-side that, another quote from the vignette, “But the house on Mango Street is not the way they told it at all.” (Cisneros). The author explains in more detail how the house is nothing they dreamed of, and that it is all old and beat up. In attachment to the article, this also explains that some people can only dream of things that they can’t have, somewhat sending the teens into a depression. If they can’t have health care or in Esperanza’s case, a nice house, then they could start doing things that they don’t know is right or simply get things that are much easier to get, such as drugs or alcohol. …show more content…
As they write in the article, “Whether by default or conscious implementation, a variety of institutional policies contribute to ongoing poverty. These include federal policies around poverty assistance and student debt, institutional barriers to upward social mobility and criminalization of poverty.” It states in this that these institutions help to decrease poverty, but they aren’t working because poverty has gotten worse. “In 2011, according to a US Census Bureau report, the official poverty rate in the United States was 15 percent, amounting to 46.2 million people in poverty. The poverty rate for children under the 18 was even more sobering, with more than one in five kids living in poverty.” As it is said, poverty is a serious issue and many people suffer with it. Maybe even half the world’s kids live in poverty, and that’s not good, because they are our future, and without a good education or a promising life, they won’t get the health and future they deserve. And again, “Further, the numbers indicate that things have gotten worse over the past decade. Poverty hit a 17-year high in 2010, and remained at that rate in 2011. Rates are substantially worse for blacks and Latinos, more than a quarter of whom live in poverty.” This proves even more that poverty has
When Esperanza is struck by the realization that she is not accepted in society, she aspires to bring a more hospitable environment to fruition. At the beginning of The House on Mango Street, Esperanza is questioned by a nun about where she lives. The condemning tone of the harridan shakes Esperanza, causing her to state, “There. I lived there… I knew then I had to have a house. A
Poverty in America is a very complex issue that can be looked at from many directions. There are a plethora of statistics and theories about poverty in America that can be confusing and at times contradicting. It is important to objectively view statistics to gain a better understanding of poverty and to wade through the stereotypes and the haze of cultural views that can misrepresent the situation.The official poverty line in America begins with a person making at or below $12,060. To calculate the poverty line for a family, an additional $4,180 is added to the base of $12,060 for each additional member(“Federal Poverty Level Guidelines”). According to the last U.S. census, over 45 million or 14.5% of Americans are at or below the poverty line(Worstall). At this level, the U.S. poverty level has not changed much from the 1970s when the government began a “War on Poverty.” However,
In The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, there is an emphasizes on how rough it is to be part of the low economic class . Through her words you can create an image about the way poverty affects children. She goes through the book making great remarks on the topic. The different experiences that Esperanza goes through have a lot to connect with her family's financial status. She specifically describes her feelings about the poverty they live in through three of her short stories. The three short stories in which poverty seems to be an obstacle are The House on Mango Street, Our Good Day, and Chanclas. When the book begins the downgrading of Esperanza's esteem begins with it.
Poverty is a complex and growing problem in the United States. As of right now there is no solution. There are proposals and acts, such as Obama Care, that were enacted in an attempt to help people in poverty, and there are so many organizations, such as Habitat for Humanity and The Hunger Project, that try to aid people when they start to lack the necessities, like food and shelter. College students are graduating college with a large amount of student loans and no way of paying them off, people are being evicted from their homes, and employees are being laid off. The unemployment rate in the United States in 2015 was five percent, that’s about fifteen million people. It’s becoming difficult for people to find jobs, therefore making it hard for people to get back on their feet and start living a comfortable lifestyle. Poverty in the
" They always told me that one day we would move into a real house, that would be ours. A house with trees, a white picket fence, real stairs and running water. The house on Mango Street isn't it. " (Cisneros, 4). This quote gives the reader a better understanding on why Esperanza is so frustrated with her poverty. Esperanza is constantly being let down because her poverty gets in the way. Her parents make all these promises to her that they cannot keep, because they do not have the money. Esperanza is still young and so far her life has been full of disappointment. When Esperanza's family moved into The House on Mango Street Esperanza's was excited, she expected to be moving into her dream house. Yet, once again her family's poverty gets in the way and they move into a shabby house. Esperanza's constant disappointment causes her a great deal of emotional pain, and all this pain leads back to her family's
Reading is similar to looking into a mirror: audiences recognize themselves in the experiences and characters on the pages. They see the good, the bad, and are brought back to experiences they had overlooked to learn something more about themselves. Some characters touch readers so intimately that they inspire readers to be better than they already are. House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros, follows a young girl named Esperanza and her experiences while living on Mango Street. She is introduced with her desperate wish to escape her poor mostly-Latino neighborhood and live in a house of her own. Esperanza compares herself to her family, innocently knowing what she wants from a young ages. She is observant and holds insights into the lives of others, learning lessons from each person she encounters. While
At the novel's end, Esperanza declares that she is too strong for Mango Street to keep her forever. What is the nature of her strength? How does Cisneros establish this characteristic elsewhere in the book?
Sandra Cisneros' strong cultural values greatly influence The House on Mango Street. Esperanza's life is the medium that Cisneros uses to bring the Latin community to her audience. The novel deals with the Catholic Church and its position in the Latin community. The deep family connection within the barrio also plays an important role in the novel. Esperanza's struggle to become a part of the world outside of Mango Street represents the desire many Chicanos have to grow beyond their neighborhoods.
In the novel, The House on Mango Street, the protagonist, Esperanza, has a desperate desire to leave home, but even after leaving she finds that still home remains significant in her life. The reasons for home’s continued influence in her life are that the house on Mango Street is the first her family ever owned, it is the place where she found herself and became a writer, and she feels as if she must save the women she leaves behind on Mango Street. This idea of home that Cisneros creates in Esperanza by the end of the novel illuminates the overall theme that home is not just a physical place, but an emotional and psychological place as well that one must not forget about. Although the house on Mango Street was not the house that Esperanza
One of the main causes of poverty is a lack of money. There are some families that do have at least one person employed in the household but the money earned is not enough to provide for the family. Tough decisions such as paying rent buying groceries become a daily challenge for struggling households. Those living in households headed by people with no high school degree are the most likely to enter poverty. Limited options in the job market make it hard for those without degrees the ability to find jobs that will pay above minimum wage. Many Americans earn less than the nation’s median income which hinders most Americans from living a life free of hunger. Children who grow up in poverty suffer more persistent, frequent, and severe health problems than do children who grow up under better financial circumstances. Children of poverty are at an extreme disadvantage and cycle ends up repeating itself until the pattern is somehow
Who does not want a home? A shelter to sleep and a roof to dine under. Of course no one wanted to stay home forever, but once in awhile and even when far away, they will long to return to that sacred place, the place where they grew up and the place they have left behind, home. The desire for a home (or house to be precise, though there was not much of a different for this case) was realistically reflected through a fiction work of Sandra Cisneros, a Mexican American write, a story called The House on Mango Street, where we shall discuss about its setting, plot and character.
We as Americans are extremely lucky. We live in a big country with many resources and almost all the luxuries we ever wanted. On the flip side, in America there are also many people who do not have these privileges. The lower class is a struggling class. For many years, people have been trying to pull themselves up from the lower class and the majority does not succeed. Childhood poverty is a large problem in the U.S. It is said that the poorest people in the United States are the children of the lower class. Childhood poverty could lead to a number of problems such as hunger, violence, physical and mental disabilities, educational problems, homelessness, family stress, sickness, and too-early parenthood. The sad truth is that living in poverty lowers a child’s chance to grow into a healthy, well-adjusted adult who will contribute to society.
“I don’t set out to be different, I set out to be me people think it’s different.” Lil Wayne expresses how he feels about his career. Meanwhile, this quote is saying that everyone is trying to be themselves whether people think it’s different or not. In House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros the motivation for those in poverty is dreams; therefore, those who struggle economically overwork those who are economically stable to obtain their goals and dreams. Cisneros uses her choice of words to display the attitude about how the characters feel about their dreams and goals.
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.”
Poverty is an undeniable problem in America. In 2014, 14.8 percent of the United States was in poverty (“Hunger and Poverty Fact Sheet”). There are more people in the United States than it seems that do not have their basic necessities. In an