The House on Mango street Sandra Cisneros

Sandra Cisneros (biography) Born December 20, 1954 in Chicago Father: Spanish-speaking Mexican Mother: English-speaking of Mexican descent Third of seven children, only daughter Family constantly migrated between Mexico City and Chicago Bachelor of Arts degree from Loyola University Chicago (1976) Master of Fine Arts degree from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop at University of Iowa (1978) Currently lives in San Antonio, Texas

Sandra Cisneros (career) Novelist, poet, short story writer After finishing her MFA degree in 1978, she returned to Chicago where she taught former high school dropouts at the Latino Youth High School. Taught creative writing at institutions such as the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Michigan Writer-in-Residence at Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio, Texas Has worked as a college recruiter and an arts administrator

Sandra Cisneros (inspiration) Started writing poetry at age 10; encouraged by a high school teacher Her social position gave her writing a unique potential Cisneros used her own cultural environment as a source of inspiration “It wasn’t as if I didn’t know who I was. I knew I was a Mexican woman. But, I didn’t think it had anything to do with why I felt so much imbalance in my life, whereas it had everything to do with it! My race, my gender, and my class! And it didn’t make sense until that moment, sitting in that seminar. That’s when I decided I would write about something my classmates couldn’t write about.”

Sandra Cisneros (inspiration) Cisneros writes to convey the lives of the people she identified with, drawing on Mexican and Southwestern myths, popular culture, and conversations in the city streets She writes down “snippets of dialogue…records of conversations she hears wherever she goes.” These are then mixed and matched to create her stories. Character names often come from the phone book. Her biculturalism and bilingualism are also very important aspects of her writing. She has “twice as many words to pick from…two ways of looking at the world.”

The house on mango street Published in 1984 Coming-of-age novella that deals with a young Latina girl, Esperanza Cordero, growing up in Chicago Novel is made up of 44 vignettes that are not quite poems but not quite full stories; Cisneros refers to the vignettes as “lazy poems.” Esperanza narrates these vignettes in first person present tense, focusing on her day-to-day activities or detailing a series of observations. Format reflects a young person’s short attention span, flitting from one topic to another.

The house on mango street Central Ideas: Motifs: Symbols: Power of language Names Shoes/feet Falling Trees Struggle for self- definition Women by windows Poetry Indepen- dence Women’s unfulfilled responsibili- ties to each other

At the time I was writing it, it started as my own memoirs but transformed into a piece of fiction. All the emotions are mine, the setting is mine, the house is mine. But the characters are a composite of my students' stories. —Sandra Cisneros