The House on Mango Street

In this 25th anniversary edition of The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros reflects on her life and her journey to becoming an internationally acclaimed writer. She discusses the ways that her character, Esperanza Cordero, intersects with her own life as a Mexican American woman. The house her immigrant parents worked hard to acquire was never enough for Sandra. She always knew that she wanted to go to college, live alone, and write professionally. Her father thought it was strange that she would break tradition and move out on her own before marriage, but her mother wanted Sandra to be educated and become a famous writer. When Sandra attended the Iowa Creative Writer’s Workshop, she developed the voice of Esperanza and used this character to talk about her life in a way that she couldn’t do autobiographically.

Many of the vignettes were composed in a single weekend in Iowa. Later, in a shabby apartment with only a heater in the kitchen, Cisneros would complete the novel. All the while, her father called regularly to say she should come home, give up writing and become “a weather girl on television, or to marry and have babies” (2).