Esperanza Ortega Character Analysis

“Don´t be afraid to start over.”All immigrants need to know this. Being an immigrant can cause many challenges, you have to leave your old life behind and your memories. Esperanza Ortega in the book Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan was an immigrant from Mexico. She had a lot of challenges as an immigrant. Before she immigrated to America she was a wealthy young girl in Mexico with servants. A series of tragedies forced her and he mama to move to America. This leads her to not be able to anything that a servant would do. Learning how to do chores was one of her challenges. In addition, she had two other challenges they were Mama getting Valley Fever, and the Mexican immigrants facing discrimination.

According to Mother Teresa, “Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty”. Now imagine being lonely, unwanted, and poor. That is how Esperanza grew up. She lived in a poor neighborhood and was lonely and felt unwanted. She had to navigate through these difficult emotions and challenges with no help, but was able to grow up and become an amazing young woman.

Esperanza and her mother made the choice to leave Mexico and go to California to work and escape Tio Luis, which I believe to be a good decision. Before going, Esperanza was spoiled, rich, and quite full of herself, living in a high social class family, and in general thought of herself better than others. At first, she was against leaving everything she knew and loved, but in the end, found herself liking California. Esperanza made new friends, in particular, Isabel, who taught her many things, even though she was younger. She taught her how to appreciate what she had, and how to get a job done. She taught her how to deal with the fact that

First, the book starts off telling the story of how Esperanza grew up in a loving wealthy family who owned El Rancho de las Rosas in Aguascalientes, Mexico. She was surrounded by generations of family members who loved her. The family had lots of servants who worked for them during the grape harvest season and they also helped them with everything else during the off season. Esperanza was a young girl who really didn’t understand poverty and was known to have a snobbish attitude at times when she was little because of her family’s wealth. She was surrounded by families that were just as wealthy as her own so poverty was not a norm in their community. There are many examples of her snobby ways in the beginning of book like when she first boarded a train in Mexico and realizes that she and her friend definitely wouldn’t be traveling first class. Her reaction to this was basically like: "You expect me to travel coach?! Yeah right." It was evident Esperanza did not use to a present lifestyle. Esperanza father was her biggest mentor and she followed his teachings very closely. After the death of her father, it was people like Abuelita, Mama, and Miguel that help keep Esperanza diva 'tude in check which helped keep her

Esperanza is an only child in her family, and during this time it was not acceptable for woman to own land. When Esperanza’s papa gets killed there were no other men in the family, so the land that Esperanza had grew up on and loved would soon all be taken away, unless her mama sacrificers herself and marries the rude brother of Esperanza’s papa. This idea of men owning land is one main reason why Esperanza’s family must migrate to California. If Esperanza was male, this story would not exist because the land would be given to her. Since Esperanza is a female, the story has a complication in the plot that needs to be overcame. This is the first obstacle that Esperanza must triumph over: leaving home to somewhere unknown.

Esperanza does not want to be like the other women in her town, always locked inside and the only freedom they have is a small window. Her great-grandmother was a role model, she showed Esperanza the way she did not want to

While Carmen helping poor people Esperanza confused because she didn’t think of poor can help each other. She was confused because the way she raised were different compared to other people. Finally, Esperanza realized that there are more profound aspects in life than being

She was born in Chicago, Illinois. Cisneros grew up in a Latino family around the 1950s and 1960s. She had a Mexican father and Chicano mother. Cisneros was encouraged by her mother to read and was not insisted with spending all of her time performing classic “women’s work”. Cisneros welcomes her culture with open arms, but acknowledges the unjustness between the genders within. Having experience growing up in a poor neighborhood in a working class family while facing the difficulties created by racism, sexism, and her status, Esperanza longed to leave the barrio. Later, she finds her capability to succeed individually and find a “home with herself”; she worked to recreate some Chicano stereotypes for her community. Cisneros didn’t want to

With all of the bad things going on around Esperanza, she was very optimistic and made the best of everything she could. For example, in chapter one, Esperanza explain how she and her family had always grown up poor and that they always had dreams of one day owning a big beautiful house like the ones that they saw on television. One with a back yard and a basement. When Esperanza's family was forced to move her parents had purchased the first house that they could afford so they wouldn't have to continue paying rent. The house was nothing like what they had spoke of or dreamt about. But Esperanza states, "I then knew I had to have a house. One I could point to. But this isn't it. The house on Mango Street isn't it. For the time being, Mama said. Temporary, says Papa. But I know how those things go.." Within this paragraph it shows that Esperanza isn't exactly happy about where she is living but she is going to make the best of it and do what she has to do to get out of there and have a house of her own. One that she can point to.

She took another avocado, cut it in half, swung the knife into the pit and pulled it from the flesh.” These quotes suggest that Esperanza is willing to work hard to support her

Mexican immigrants faced challenge such as discrimination for their skin color, Low wages, and being replaced for those who would work for less. In the book Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan, Esperanza had to go through everything every immigrant had to, and only because she was mexican made it worse. She had to go through chores she did not know how to do, discrimination, and many more problems. Esperanza's life was full of challenges, but he main three challenges that she faced were dealing with her chores, discrimination, and her mother's upcoming sickness.

Esperanza’s insecurity about where she lives and how she lives is the conflict of the story. A tradition her father, Nenny, and herself has is going to the houses on the hills, she believes she looks like the hungry asking for food so she no longer goes. Esperanza is so ashamed of her house that when someone ask which house she lives in she denies living in those flats. She becomes aware of how poor her family is when she must go to work to help pay for private school, this encourages her to get out of the flats. Esperanza sets out to be able to support herself on her own and buy the house she has been dreaming of since she was little.

“Don’t be afraid to start over.” Immigrants everywhere have to move and start their whole life over. Esperanza Rising is a book about a rich Mexican girl that loses everything when her house burns down. This book was written by Pam Munoz Ryan, and her life was much like Esperanza’s when she had to move from Mexico and had to work for very low pay as an immigrant. Esperanza faced many challenges like Marta and her friends trying to get workers to go on a strike, mama getting sick with Valley Fever, and other Mexicans facing discrimination in the U.S.

Esperanza has hopes far beyond the stereotypical expectations of Chicanos within society at the time but her status and mindset does not match those goals. As far as her status, she is apart of the lower class class family who were dreamers and fed unrealistic concepts into their children minds of one day having this “dream” house but in all actuality, they knew it would never happen. For example, on page 4, Esperanza

Most importantly, Esperanza faced the challenge of not knowing how to do chores because she always had servants when she lived in Mexico. Esperanza had the chore of sweeping the platform but Marta and her friends made fun of her because she looked weird trying to sweep and didn’t know how to do it. On page 118 it says,“How would you know how to sweep a floor? The only thing you ever learned was how to give orders. That is not your fault. Anza, look at me.” said Miguel. After she got made fun of