Sandra Cisneros Biography

Sandra Cisneros explores gender preference within her Mexican-American heritage with strong usage of imagery and the variation of her tone. First, the imagery found in “Only Daughter” helps portray the sacrifices Cisneros father made for his children. For instance, Cisneros writes how ecstatic their father was that his children would use their smarts instead of their hands like he once had to. Cisneros describes her father's hands saying, “Even now my father's hands are thick and yellow, stubbed by a history of hammer and nails and twine and coils and springs” (Cisneros 99). Cisneros use of imagery creates a vivid picture of how her father has worked extensively to make sure his seven children do not have to work as hard as he did to live in

Each of these texts all highlight the importance of identity and names, and how having a name that doesn’t fit European standards can make life in our society much harder. When your name doesn’t fit the European standards it can be harder to get a job, and you become more vulnerable for bullying. Some also allude to the idea that a name is something you must identify with as well, and that it’s a piece of you.

Sandra Cisneros purpose in this novel is to use a fictional character to narrate a young latino girls life and show readers how she portrayed the narrator's hopes and dreams. Cisneros, a very driven individual, wants readers to strive and succeed. The author wants to inspire many and uses her writing skills to get her message out to many. She uses Esperanza to prove to readers the American dream is possible and to go always beyond the limits. Sandra Cisneros strives to tell a good story but also hopes to serve as an inspiration.

Cisneros’ family bounced back and forth between Mexico and the United States for most of her youth, which led to firsthand experience in the difficulties of growing up as a multicultural person (Doyle. 54-55). As an adult, she settled in San Antonio, Texas, but that feeling of not belonging to either culture never left her. She drew on this feeling as inspiration for many works, including “Woman Hollering Creek,” a short story about a Mexican woman, named Cleofilas, brought to live in the United States by her new husband. She is excited to leave her lazy brothers and old-fashioned father behind, and dreams of the endless possibilities that

Readers of Sandra Cisneros are able to identify major themes throughout her work. She makes these themes evident because growing up she experienced some of the feelings and emotions that her characters do, which is why she is able to write with such passion. Displacement and isolation are two themes that Cisneros makes evident in her work. Readers will see these themes in Woman Hollering Creek, ‘Mericans, and Eleven.

Growing-up in a predominately Mexican/Mexican-American community as a first-generation girl, like I did, is no walk in the park. Not only was I to uphold my parent’s traditional Mexican values such as: learning to cook and keep to a household, as well as a marriage, but also to uphold my new American values of independence and success measured in money as well as in property. At school I was taught to forget my first language, Spanish, and speak only in English, reminding me that: “You don’t want to speak with an accent.” At home I was reminded that Spanish, was and still is my first language and to leave English for school use only, reminding me that: “We can’t understand you in English.” Through this tug-of-war, between both cultures expectations of who I was to be/become, there was a desperate need to find my own identity, away from either culture. Sandra Cisneros’, The House on Mango Street, documents the need and struggle to find one’s own identity, through the narrator Esperanza’s experiences growing-up in a predominately Latino community in Chicago. Throughout the book Esperanza tries to understand the many different factors that influence her life and identity: in particular ethnicity and gender. Although, Esperanza suggest that she doesn’t want to be identified by either her Mexican identity or her sex; both of these factors play a major role in her struggle to find her own identity, by the way that they are intertwined in her own thoughts and in the descriptions of

The poem “Barbie Doll” represents the struggles of young girl who wants to fit into the ideas of feminine beauty that sets by the society. The poem begins “This girlchild was born as usual” (Piercy Line 1). The author depicts a normal young girl who is healthy, brilliant and plays with doll. In the poem the girl was being bullied by her classmate and told her that that she has a “big nose and fat legs” (Line 6).Then she was advised to go on a diet and exercise .The girl struggles to become what the others want her to be .She feels being unaccepted because of her imperfections. Just like the speaker in the poem “Suicide Note” who struggles to meet her parent’s expectations .Both women can’t handle the pressures sets by others and commit suicide.

Sandra Cisneros was a woman of Mexican lineage living in America, which is a struggle in itself, along with her accounts with poverty. As a young woman in a household with her male siblings, was taboo for her to not have been married off before leaving, but that didn’t inhibit her from branching off and fulfilling her passions.

When writers are first coming to the drawing board to think of a story to create, most of the advice given to them is “write what you know.” This was perfect advice for Mexican-American writer Sandra Cisneros, who draws upon her coming-of-age events throughout her childhood and adolescence in “The House on Mango Street.” Drawing from life stories, her alter ego “Esperanza” describes everything from the house she lived in, to the hair on people’s heads. These personal stories show a stark contrast for any reader of a different culture, and confirm feelings for those of the same culture. However, these stories include themes that are essentially the dealings of growing up, something that most all, including myself, can relate to. The structure of the collection of stories is as bright and exuberant as the words she uses to describe them, often sporadic and intuitive, something that feels like a teenager would write. Her narrative tone as Esperanza sets her unique upbringing into the spotlight, along with the figurative language and persona she uses to communicate her perspective. The relation into this story I feel the most is the simple struggles of the surrounding cultures and happenings on Mango Street, that inform much about how you’re raised and see the world. Through this, Cisneros comments both on the culture she was raised in, and makes you question the one you were raised in, as she recounts her distinctive formative years.

She describes her as “usual” to emphasize she was born like any other normal child (line 1). The succeeding lines show that she played with “dolls that did pee-pee and miniature GE stoves and iron” (line 2-3). The toys provided to the girl child symbolized feminism. It represents the kind of duties women were expected to learn. In addition, she had to manage to look good to fit into society.

“Being an only daughter in a family of six sons forced me by circumstance to spend a lot of time by myself because my brothers felt it beneath them to play with a girl in public”(140). As a daughter, the narrator was isolated from the family and deprived of the access to acceptance and encouragement. Her brothers isolated her because of the stereotypical view on girls in Mexican culture. Her father also imposed the sense of loneliness onto her unintentionally as he would go around and boast, “I have seven sons” (140). Even though those words were not meant to hurt her feelings, she still felt herself “being erased” and was sensitive to the mistranslation because of her peculiar

In Sandra Cisneros’ story “Only Daughter,” Sandra Cisneros wanted many things in her life and that was to gain her father’s acceptance of her. She wanted him to understand that it was difficult not only growing up the only daughter but also coming from a Mexican family that was expecting her to find a husband. So she does it by writing stories for her father hoping one day he’ll read them and be proud of her. But knowing that her father does not understand English words, she still tries. One day one of her stories is published in Spanish.

Sandra Cisneros’s The House on Mango Street is a novel that seeks to bring awareness of Mexican-American culture and how it affects women in particular. Accordingly, its protagonist Esperanza is used to portray what it is like to be a Mexican-American female in this world. She learns what is expected of her and what is out of her reach during her growth throughout the novel, in which she develops an independent and caring identity. The process of this development is influenced by her culture and socioeconomic status.

The subject of Piercy’s poem “Barbie Doll” is one of heavy criticism toward a perfectly normal girl that ends up pushing her to her limits. This cruel and unnecessary criticism from society drives the girl to take her own life. In the first two stanzas, Piercy takes great care in emphasizing how the girl “was born as usual” and that she had nothing wrong with her physically or mentally (1). However, her appearance was not up to society’s standards of perfection, thus she people teased her about her big nose and chubby legs. The title of the poem itself “Barbie Doll” has connotations to perfection because an actual Barbie doll has perfect, plastic, wrinkle-free, tan skin, blonde hair, and a thin figure. Barbie can also do whatever it is she wants like be a doctor or an astronaut. It is not surprising that this young girl from Piercy’s poem aspires to attain this ideal of perfection all while society is pressuring her to do so. Conversely, the subject in Robinson’s poem “Richard Cory” is about a

The practice of giving little girls baby dolls has been around since forever. Only through the years have the dolls grown more and more lifelike. The more realistic ones that required regular feedings, burping, changing of diapers, and an assortment of a wardrobe that could rival most closets today. Though quality came at a very high price. You would have had to have the luck of being an only child, or the favorite of all your siblings to be able to call one of these luxurious dolls to call your own. As a child myself, I have always had a preference of fair skinned dolls than those that mirrored my own complexion. The only explanation i could conceive is deep institutionalized racism, but it wasn’t something i learned directly. It just developed over years covertly laced within skipped chapter of my history textbooks, the media’s seemingly endless reports of “thugs”, and the complete underrepresentation in my limited circle of entertainment of school, Disney movies, and books. Even with my mother’s constant, effortless strategies of expanding my collection of Barbie’s from the lightest shades of cafe au lait with shiny, bone straight hair that glided through my plastic combs with ease to the crispest, darkest shades of the night sky who hair was so thick and curly that no comb nor brush ever survived a single run through. The Disney movies that lined my bookshelves always featured fair skinned, petite protagonists who only outstanding features was the color of their hair.