Identity (Reader Response)

Growing up in a small town I never knew anyone who rented a house or moved around a lot. All of my friends lived in a house that their parents owned. My childhood was filled with houses that had to loving parents inside, a little dog barking in the front lawn and a white picket fence. Basically, I grew up rather naïve and was not exposed to a diverse community. Now looking back I really was shallow. We decided who was “cool” and where we wanted to spend our time by the things our friends had. My friends always wanted to come to my house; I was “cool” because my parents had installed a pool in our backyard. We didn’t ever go to Sarah’s because she did not have her own bedroom. As kids our whole identity was based on where we lived and what we owned.

Cisneros addresses the idea that identity is based on where a person lives and what they own. Esperanza dreamed of a house all her own, one that she would own. It never occurred to me that in our childhood decisions of who was cool really was based on someone’s lifestyle. If their lifestyle was not lavish and rather comfortable, we did not want anything to do with them. Esperanza runs into this problem as well. When she tries to become part of the group of students that is allowed to stay at school and eat a sack lunch rather than walking home to eat, the nun refuses her and says she really only walks three blocks and points out a house. Esperanza agreed that the nicer house really was hers, when in reality the house pointed at was not. Esperanza was embarrassed of her house. To Esperanza the house was not a safe haven like most homes, it was a prison.

In the beginning of the novel, she describes one of the houses her family and she lived in. She describes that it was on the third floor of a run down building and not of the floors were flat. The floors were running at angles and were either going uphill or downhill. She also refers to the boards over the windows that her father nailed up. Her father nailed the boards up to protect the children from falling through a window from the third story; Esperanza saw these boards as bars in a prison cell. She wanted to escape from that house but there was something always holding her back. Esperanza was a prisoner. This house defines her in so many ways. She feels as though she will never be able to leave. She will be stuck living with her parents for the rest of her life. Esperanza’s childhood homes make her who she really is.

Esperanza and I are a lot a like and very much different. I loved my home where I grew up. I have many fond memories of the place where I grew up and would never give those up. Esperanza also has many memories of the places she grew up. The place we are different is that she would give anything to change those memories. She would give anything to have the memories I have of coming home to a barking dog in the front yard and a bedroom all to herself. A person’s possessions, in society, truly identify their identity. And as children our whole identity was based on where we lived and what we owned. Cisneros points this out in her novel, A House on Mango Street. The main character, Esperanza, struggles with the places she grew up and her whole identity throughout the novel. Cisneros supported the idea that a home is an identity in society by using Esperanza as a character constantly striving to have the American dream – a house, a loving family, a barking dog, and a white picket fence.