The House on Mango Street is a novel written by Sandra Cisneros. The novel depicts the life of 12-year-old Mexican Esperanza, who grew up in a Hispanic neighborhood in Chicago. This book goes through many themes like identity, poverty discrimination. In the story, she shows small parts of her life and others to go through all of these themes. She talks about her home and the changes she goes through each time she moves. She then moves to the house on Mango Street where she grew up in a lower-class neighborhood with a majority of Mexicans. She thought about her name and her accent compared to her friends Lucy and Rachel who grew up in America and had an American name and accident and Esperanza has a Mexican name with a Mexican meaning. The girls become friends and go on many adventures together. Esperanza goes through many characters and displays their lives as well for example, Marin who dreams of marrying a rich man and escaping, Alica a girl in university to better her life which Esperanza admires, a woman trapped in her house by her husband and gets very bored and many more characters. Esperanza wants to leave The House on Mango Street one day and leave behind the identity along with it but then she realizes that identity grows, and you can't take a part of it away, she will always have that part of her even if she decides to change.
This novel is very easy to read along to and each story captivates a different element making her stories fun and interesting. I really like this novel because of the cultural representation, community and her stories are very relatable and beautiful.