Esperanza Rising Summary

Did you know that Esperanza has changed in several different ways throughout the book? If you didn’t know this then you should read this book. Esperanza is very different from the people from the camp they went to. In the beginning Esperanza is selfish when she had gotten on the train. She was also very naive too. But in the middle of the book she changes a lot. She is very nice and giving.

Esperanza is the protagonist of the story. She is very wealthy and gets everything she wants. She struggles through her father’s death and moving to California. Throughout the story she becomes very mature, determined, and a hard worker. She really shocked me because she was a very spoiled princess who became a very strong migrant worker. Ramona Ortega also known as Mama is Esperanza’s mother. They are always together and she helped Esperanza stay strong. Throughout the story she is very strong but becomes very ill and depressed. Miguel was Esperanza’s best friends when they were little kids. He is the child of two servants that work for the family. He wants to become a mechanic and is very determined to reach that goal. They still look after eachother, even though they aren’t very close due to their social status. In the end he is able to bring back Abuelita back from Mexico. Hortensia was a servant that took care of their family. She always looked after Esperanza and was almost like a second mother. She was a Zapotec Indian. She was Alfonso’s wife and the mother of Miguel. Alfonso was a field worker and a very close friend to Papa. He loved the land and took care of the rose garden. He is the main person who helped everyone get to California. Isabel is the daughter of Juan and Josefina. She is only 9 years old but can clean, do laundry, and change diapers. She was the one who taught Esperanza how to do housework. She becomes very close friends with Esperanza. Isabel is the only one who goes to school to learn to read, write, and speak

In Chapter 5 of the novel Esperanza Rising, Hortensia recounts a story from when Esperanza was five years old and MIguel was eight years old. Hortensia and Esperanza were the only ones in the house when Miguel ran in because he saw six bandits with riffles coming toward them. The three hid under Esperanza’s bed and pulled down the bed covers so that they couldn’t be seen. The bandits came into the house and stole the silver. Two of the men came into the room where they were hiding. Miguel had a big field mouse in his pocket that he was planning to tease Esperanza with. When a pin pricked Esperanza she moved and made a sound. Miguel pushed the mouse out from under the bed and it ran around the room startling the bandits. The bandits thought that the sound had come from the mouse and left. Papa said that Miguel was very smart and brave for protecting Esperanza and rewarded Miguel by taking them both on a special outing on a train.

In the book Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan, Esperanza is the main character who is the protagonist. Esperanza is a thirteen-year-old child that has been faced with more tragic events from the age of nine to thirteen than some may experience their whole life time. Her character is very smart, determined, and compassionate just like some of the kids you may know. The author does a great job with allowing the reader to get inside Esperanza’s head to understand her thinking and logic. The author uses Esperanza life to encourage children who may be going through some of the same experience, that they could make it through to. Although Esperanza is just a normal kid trying to have fun, the constant tragic events in her life forces her to mature instantly becoming a strong young adult. This paper will discuss how Esperanza grew up and some of Esperanza reactions that shows her growth in maturity, while exploring some of the conflicts Esperanza experienced that causes her to change her thinking.

Esperanza is introduced in The Bean Trees, as a Guatemalan refugee who lives at Jesus is Lord Used Tires with her husband, Estevan. Her brother, husband, and close friends are members of an underground teacher’s union in Guatemala City. One night, a police raid that storms through the streets looking for members of the teacher’s union kills her brothers and friends. Esperanza makes the choice to refuse to give the names of the seventeen teacher’s union members because she knew that this information would lead to their death. The police punish her for this choice and kidnap her daughter, Ismene. She ends up departing Guatemala for the United States because her life is danger, leaving Ismene behind. The decision to save the lives of many, and thereby putting her and her daughter’s life at risk is one that causes unfathomable and lingering pain.

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.

In the novel, Esperanza Rising the author, Pam Munoz Ryan, masterfully uses figurative language to convey the rich story of her own heritage as a Mexican-American. The author uses several similes and metaphors to convey the deeper meaning of her story. However, the author’s use of a blanket image becomes particularly important as she uses it as an extended metaphor throughout the story.

I read a novel “Esperanza Rising” by Pam Munoz Ryan it is a story of a young girl. Esperanza was a rich girl at the time she was in Mexico and she became a labor worker on a farm in San Francisco, California. In this book I read all the stories there are a different kind of Mexican proverbs throughout the stories which reflect the way they are, and real meanings of the story. In this story they used three Mexican proverbs that reflects their story such as “He who falls today may rise tomorrow” “The rich person is richer when he becomes poor, than the poor person when he becomes rich’’ Wait a little while and the fruit will fall into your hand’’

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

Mexican immigrants faced discrimination, hard labor, and low wages. In Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan, Esperanza had to become a Mexican immigrant because her father, Sixto Ortega, was killed and Esperanza and Mama had to escape from her rude uncles. Since her Papa’s death, Esperanza had to face many other challenges as an immigrant such as she had to learn how to do daily chores because she always has had a servant, the dust storms caused mama to get valley fever, and Mexicans were discriminated against in America.

Esperanza, a strong- willed girl who dreams big despite her surroundings and restrictions, is the main character in The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. Esperanza represents the females of her poor and impoverished neighborhood who wish to change and better themselves. She desires both sexuality and autonomy of marriage, hoping to break the typical life cycle of woman in her family and neighborhood. Throughout the novel, she goes through many different changes in search of identity and maturity, seeking self-reliance and interdependence, through insecure ideas such as owning her own house, instead of seeking comfort and in one’s self. Esperanza matures as she begins to see the difference. She evolves from an insecure girl to a

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.

Esperanza Facing Challenges “Don’t be afraid to start over”. Being forced to leave your home, and make a new life for yourself and your family. Esperanza young Hispanic girl who was born a princess, than all of a sudden she’s facing challenges that she never thought she would have to deal with. Since her Papa’s death, Esperanza had to face many challenges as an immigrant. Such as learning how to do chores, dealing with Mama becoming sick with Valley Fever, than Esperanza and other Mexicans having to face discrimination in the U.S.

In The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros, a little girl from a Latino heritage is given birth to. Not literally, but in the sense of characterization. Esperanza is a fictional character made up by Cisneros to bring about sensitive, alert, and rich literature. She is the protagonist in the novel and is used to depict a female’s life growing up in the Latino section of Chicago. Cisneros creates the illusion that Esperanza is a real human being to communicate the struggles of growing up as a Latina immigrant in a modern world, by giving her a name, elaborating her thoughts and feelings, and illustrating her growth as a person through major events.

Can you relate any of the scenes in the novel to your own life? If so, how? 5. What was the most significant scene in Esperanza Rising? If that scene did not take place, how would the novel have changed?