The House On Mango Street

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Chicanos,
or Mexican-Americans—that has long been veiled by demeaning stereotypes and
afflicted by internal ambivalence. In some ways it resembles the immigrant
cultures that your students may have encountered in books like My Ántonia,
The Jungle, and Call It Sleep. But unlike Americans of Slavic or Jewish
ancestry, Chicanos have been systematically excluded from the American
mainstream in ways that suggest the disenfranchisement of African-Americans.
Although Cisneros uses language as a recurring metaphor for the gulf
between Mexican-Americans and the majority culture, what keeps Esperanza
Cordero and her family and friends locked in their barrio is something more
obdurate than language: a confluence of racism, poverty, and shame. It may
help your discussion to remind students that the ancestors of many Chicanos
did not come to the United States by choice, but simply found themselves in
alien territory as a result of the U.S.'s expansionist policy into country
that had once been ...

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