Sandra Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street

Category: Books, Fiction, House on Mango Street

Last Updated: 14 Mar 2023

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In Sandra Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street, characters struggle with their daily lives in the poverty-stricken neighborhoods of Chicago. Some view Mango Street as the only place they would ever want to live, while to others it is simply a stepping stone to a better life. and could not leave quick enough. Throughout the story, Esperanza and other characters express how Mango Street is not a place they call home, yet it is where they reside. Their positive and negative interactions with those around them shape their views of home. Community is what makes or doesn't make a house into a home. Just because one lives in a house, that does not make it a home. Esperanza’s parents tell her that she would one day "move into a house, a real house that would be theirs for always so they wouldn’t have to move each year”, and she gets that in the house on Mango Street.

For her however, it is not a home even though it is "theirs, and they don't have to pay rent to anybody, or share the yard with the people downstairs, or be careful not to make too much noise". For her, living in a house that is all her families does not quantify it as a home. In the same way that the Corderos dream of a perfect home, Mamacita across the street spends her time dreaming of her home country. She came to America to raise her son with his father so he could have a better life, but she instead spends all her time " [playing] the Spanish radio show and [singing] all the homesick songs about her country". Her husband paints the walls of their apartment pink like the ones in her old home, but “it’s not the same, you know”.

Esperanza speculates that the reason that she does not leave the apartment is that she is afraid to speak English. Her inability to communicate prevents her from embracing her community, so the only thing she can do is sit inside and “sigh for her pink house and then cry". Lastly, a home is where one wants to be, and where one is wanted, When Esperanza goes to visit Elenita, the witch woman, her fortunes tell her she has "a home in the heart”. Esperanza is wanted on Mango Street, and although she may no embrace it as her home, it embraces her. One of three sisters tells her that ”She will always be Mango Street” and that “She can't forget who she is”. A home is not always where one dwells. It can be a place of memory or a place of hope, some attainable, while others are far out of reach, caring, and compassionate.

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