Sabato Rodia's The Watts Towers: Residential Community

I think that when Esperanza says on page 89, "I have decided not to grow up tame like the other who lay their necks on the threshold waiting for the ball and chain", she is speaking of women like Rafeala, her great-grandmother, or Sally whom traded their futures for married life. She sees how they all are trapped with their husbands and are stuck inside their homes. She feels as though these women looked toward married life to find security. She felt like the did what was expected of them; in other words they were tame. Esperanza wants her independence and knows that she will not find it the kind of lives that these women settled for. She feels that she must be different, to shirk that pre-decided type of behavior that is well accepted by the

Hook: In the coming-of-age novel, House on Mango Street, the main character Esperanza narrates the story through her perspective of the situations she encounters as she grows older in her new neighborhood.

Imagine feeling like you don’t belong and never will, or that the odds of your success is a slim chance to none. The House on Mango Street written by Sandra Cisneros, leads us into a world of poverty, broken dreams, and slithers of hope. The House on Mango Street follows the life of a young girl by the name of Esperanza Cordero, who occupies her childhood in an indigent Latino neighborhood in Chicago, Illinois. The books expresses her dire need to have a place where she can call home, and escape the harsh reality of her expected life. Though, her life on Mango Street is bearable with help of her little sister Nenny, her two best friends Rachel and Lucy, and her other friend Sally. On her journey to adulthood, Sandra Cisneros will show how Esperanza assimilates into a mature young lady, who truly find her identity, and develops emotionally as well as physically.

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

On May 3rd when I visited the site where the Norman Blumberg Housing Project once stood, the air was hauntingly peaceful. I had read about the notoriety of the site during my research, how over its existence it had become an area of concentrated poverty and crime, but on this day this urban setting was quiet and calm. On the two square city blocks where a complex of apartment buildings once ruled the landscape, only a single high-rise remained among the unchecked wild grass. However, even in the peacefulness of this day in Sharswood, the looming presence of the infamous Norman Blumberg Apartments could still be felt.

Have you ever wondered what life is like for people in specific social classes and all the baggage that comes with being wealthy? In the article “Amber Waves of Green”, author Jon Ronson has sit downs with hard working americans making a income of $200 a week all the way up to $625,000 a week. In another writing titled “The Mansion”, written by Michael Lewis, allows the reader to get insight on what life is like as a middle class individual taking on a higher style of living. Within the two articles the reader can point out that both Jon Ronson and Michael Lewis disagree on living styles, what wealth can do for you, and how it can affect the people around you.

Sandra Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street tells the story of a young, teenage, Latina girl named Esperanza, living in the late twentieth century. Esperanza takes her readers through her life and adventures through each chapter of the novella where each time she learns something. She faces the troubles of racism, friendship, and strange neighborhoods and most importantly, figuring out how she wants to spend her life. Through her race and wealth, Esperanza has created her identity as a shy, poor, and ambitious person.

“The House on Mango Street” was written to explain the lives of a family living in poverty in 1984. Coming from Esperanza’s point of view, this book gave her siblings and friends an idea of who the real Esperanza was and what her priorities were. In this book, Esperanza moves from city to city, house to house, with her family hoping for a real house. When she gets to the house on Mango Street, it is not what she expects. She meets new friends and has some crazy experiences. This book has many societal standards but, the most important three are responsibility, happiness, and fitting in.

One’s identity is the most important part about them. Without one’s identity, there is nothing about them that makes them who they are. This is why the struggle to find one’s identity is one of the hardest struggles to take place within someone. Because the struggle to find one’s identity can be so difficult, a lot of writers today have used this motif in their books, as this has become a topic many readers can relate to. A book that highlights this topic very much is “The House on Mango Street”, by Sandra Cisneros. This book is about a young girl named Esperanza, who moves to a new house and a new community, and struggles with finding her identity and fitting in the community. The book is written in a series of vignettes, or small poems

Immigration involves moving from our home country to a whole new one in order to start over and have a better life and or future. In Esperanza Rising, Esperanza Just lost her dad and her dad’s step brothers/her uncles burn her house down they decided they have to leave Mexico and become an immigrant.They moved to California and she has to work because her mamma becomes sick, so she needs the money to pay her mammas hospital bills, so she goes to work in migrant worker and her job was to eyeing the potatoes. Although Esperanza faced many challenges as an immigrant, her hardest challenge were not being able to chores because someone else also did it for her, and when esperanza had to go to work in the fields to take care of mamma.

If you serve in the military, you know that moving is a regular event that can be stressful. Relocating to a new area doesn’t have to be taxing for you and your family. Here are some helpful Ft. Bliss housing resources for military family families relocating to El Paso.

Imagine being taunted for having to wear potato-sack dresses because of poverty, or growing up in impoverishment American housing projects. Two of the most famous people had to go through those trails in their life, but made it out VERY successfully. Oprah was raised being taunted for having to wear potato-sack dresses because of her poverty. Oprah now has a television network called OWN. She is a talk-show host, a book club president, an actress, a producer, a magazine owner, a satellite radio station owner, a philanthropist, a lifestyle guru, and a single-handed president picker. The other is an African-American born into impoverished American housing projects, Jay-Z. He is now the current CEO of Roc Nation and his net worth is an estimated $450 million. Even though neither of these people hadn’t come from lovely backgrounds, they had various trials, and tribulations, but they made it through and became some of the most successful people in the world. Growing up in a rough environment can be extremely hard. It can either make or break a person. From home life, to schooling, to jail systems, and the streets being an easy backup. growing up in this environment can be huge deals in the success of young African Americans.

The story of my childhood is very present in my life every time I watch the Spanish programming on television. In the occasions I have free time from my daily routine I sit next my mother in the living room and talk about how different my childhood was in Mexico compared to my son’s here in California. We like to watch documentaries about the thirty two states and rural towns that surround each state in Mexico. Unlike the stories “Miss East LA” and My Ride My Revolution” by Luis J. Rodriguez my story does not begin in an urban city or in a diverse community like the south central area. Not even in a wealthy gated community or in the popular community of East Los Angeles.

A work of art that has generated a lot of controversy and attention is a structure called Steel Cloud also known as The West Coast Monument. Steel Cloud is a structure that was supposed to be in Los Angeles to welcome immigrants to the America’s shore. However, the process of construction was paused when people began expressing there their opinions from their concerns to their issues with the structure.

“The idea was to incorporate a building that could be easily be built and taken down both constructively and economically. Most ideas involved a long, one-story building made of brick. The problem was that it looked far too solid difficult to remove later and it might be even harder to light- not to mention that it probably could not be built in time. Further debates and redrafting delayed the project even further.” (1)