The House On Mango Street Belonging Essay

A sense of belonging is a struggle many deal with daily, but typically one’s own home is considered a safe place. A home is where you’re surrounded by people you love, and who usually love you back, so it’s no wonder most people find their home as an escape from the dangerous and unaccepting outside world. For others like Esperanza, the main character of “The House on Mango Street” by Sandra Cisneros, home is yet another place in the chaotic world that makes her feel like an alien. “The House on Mango Street” has intrigued readers for decades through the story of a young girl telling very short accounts through her life, which seem as though they do not fit together for any particular meaning, but in actuality create a much larger picture of a young girl who grows up feeling different from those around her, but who eventually discovers who she is and where she belongs. Esperanza is the young girl who tells all of the short stories throughout, and we can see from very early on that she does not like any of her homes, especially her current home on Mango Street. Cisneros develops the story around Esperanza’s literal home on Mango Street as well as her figurative home in the world in order to capture Esperanza’s isolation in relation to her peers through the introduction of many characters in a short story-like structure. Esperanza narrates the story in a way similar to a …show more content…
And throughout the fifties and sixties, despite their eagerness to integrate more fully into American society, Mexican Americans were still treated as "outsiders" by mainstream American culture. Despite their push for civil rights throughout the 1960s and the 1970s, many Chicanos still faced discrimination that limited opportunities for advancement. By 1983, when The House on Mango Street was published, stringent U.S. immigration laws had long limited the number of Mexicans who were allowed to immigrate to the United States