The House on Mango Street Part One
The House on Mango Street
Esperanza’s family is forced to move houses when the pipes in their old apartment break, and the landlord refuses to have them repaired. Esperanza has two brother, Kiki and Carlos, as well as a sister, Nenny. Their family dreamt of moving into a house with large spaces and several bathrooms, but their house on Mango Street has very little space and just one bathroom. They moved around a lot before moving into this house, and her parents promised her that they would move soon, but she knows that they are unlikely to do so since they own the house on Mango Street. Esperanza likes this house over their old one, but it still doesn’t make her proud.
Hairs
Esperanza describes the hair of her family members. She likes the way her mother’s hair smells like bread, and she likes to sleep close to her mother so she can smell them.
Boy and Girls
Esperanza’s brothers don’t talk to her or play with her outside the house because she is a girl, and she is expected to care for her younger sister, Nenny. Her little sister is too young, and Esperanza wishes for a best friend.
My Name
Esperanza gives the reader her name and muses on its meaning. In English, her name means hope, while it means too many letters in Spanish, or waiting, or sadness. She likes how her name is pronounced in Spanish, but not English. She was named after her great-grandmother, who like her was born in the Chinese year of the horse. The horse signifies strength, and so it’s said to be unlucky for women to be born under that sign. Esperanza reasons that it’s because the Chinese and Spanish like their women to be weak. She never met her great-grandmother but has heard stories about her. She imagines her like a wild horse, who had refused to get married but was forced to do it by her family. She never forgave her family and spent her life looking out of a window. Esperanza doesn’t want to end up like her great-grandmother. She wants to change her name and lists several options until she decides on Zeze the X.
Cathy Queen of Cats
Cathy becomes Esperanza’s first friend on Mango Street, but she tells her that they can only be friends for a week since her family is moving away soon. She claims to be related to the queen of France, and constantly gossips about the residents of Mango Street. She offends Esperanza by telling her that her family is moving away because Mango Street is deteriorating with an influx of families like Esperanza’s
Our Good Day
Esperanza’s friendship with Cathy ends prematurely because Esperanza becomes friends with two Chicana sisters, Lucy and Rachel. Cathy forbids Esperanza to be friends with them because of their smell, but Esperanza doesn’t care. The three of them pool a little money to buy themselves a bike, and Esperanza realizes that she will eventually have to share both her bike and friends with Nenny. They ride their bike through the neighborhood, and Esperanza describes Mango Street.
Laughter
Esperanza and Nenny share a laugh even though they don’t look like each other. They also tend to have the same notions. Esperanza saw a house and it reminded her of Mexico, her new friends laughed at her, but Nenny felt the same way.
Gil’s Furniture Bought & Sold
The neighborhood has a junk store that is owned by an old and dark man, who only switches on the lights of the stores when he knows that his customers have money. Esperanza and Nenny wander the piles of furniture and broken goods in the dark. Their family had bought their refrigerator from the same store. Esperanza is afraid of the store owner, but Nenny is indifferent. She asks him about a little box that turns out to be a music box. He plays it for them and the music makes Esperanza deeply emotional. Nenny wants to buy the box, but the store owner tells her that it’s not for sale.
Meme Ortiz
Meme, or Juan, moves into Cathy’s wooden house after she leaves. He has a dog with two names, and there’s a large tree in his backyard. Meme broke both his arms when he jumped out of the tree during a game with the other children of Mango Street.
Louie, His Cousin & his Other Cousin
A Puerto Rican family moves into the basement of Mene’s house, the family has a young boy, Louie, who becomes a friend to Esperanza’s brothers. Louie’s family includes an older cousin, Marin, who wears makeup and even sells it. She sings songs about boyfriends when she babysits her cousins. Another of Louie’s cousins shows up in the neighborhood with a Cadillac and takes the neighborhood children for a ride. They hear sirens, he drops them off and crashes into a streetlight. He is arrested by the police.
Marin
Louie’s cousin has a boyfriend in Puerto Rico, she wants to go to him and marry him. She also wants to move to Chicago and get a job, where she can meet a rich man who will marry her. Marin educates the neighborhood girls about women's things like how pregnancy occurs, how they should remove their facial hair, and how to tell how many boys like them. Marin spends the days babysitting her cousins and goes outside with her radio in the evenings. She smokes cigarettes and waits for the boys to pass through. Time passes, Marin continues to dance under streetlights and hoping for a man to swoop down and change her life.
Those Who Don’t
Esperanza understands that some people would think of her neighborhood as dangerous, but that’s simply because they don’t know any better. Esperanza and her friends are never scared of the intimidating-looking people on her street, but she would also feel scared if she were to go into a neighborhood like hers that had people she didn’t know
There Was an Old Woman She Had So Many Children She Didn’t Know What to Do
Rosa Vargas has many children, and she is unable to control them. She is mostly sad that their father left her without a word or a means to provide for them. The children don’t care about anyone including themselves. The neighborhood tried to help them, but eventually, they stopped caring, even when Rosa died after falling from a great height.
Alicia Who Sees Mice
Alicia lives in the neighborhood with her father and younger siblings. She does all the chores for her family, travels far by public transportation for education, and spends nights studying, which is when she sees the mice. Her father tells her she needs to wake up early and cook tortillas for her siblings.
Darius and the Clouds
Esperanza doesn’t like living in the inner city because there isn’t enough sky, flowers, or nature. They take whatever little of it they can get. The sky was full of puffy clouds one day, and a boy called Darius looked at a cloud and called it God.
And Some More
Esperanza gets into an argument with her sister and friends while they are discussing clouds. She thinks that the Eskimos probably have a lot of names for the clouds, and tries to come up with them. Nenny begins to list everyday names, while Lucy and Rachel want to talk about things that look like clouds. They insult Rachel for having a fat ugly face much like a cloud, and spend the rest of the fight trying to come up with creative insults at one another.
The Family of Little Feet
Esperanza thinks about a fairy tale family of people with tiny feet and then begins to recount a time when she and her friends received heels that perfectly fit their feet. It changed the appearance of their legs, and some of their neighbors warned them that such shoes were not meant for children. They ignored their neighbors and went out with the shoes. The girls received several unwanted sexual comments, and a homeless man tried to kiss Rachel. They returned to the neighborhood and left the shoes on their porch, and their mother threw the shoes away, to their great relief.
A Rice Sandwich
Esperanza is jealous of the children in her school who are allowed to eat lunch at the canteen and don’t have to go home for lunch. She persuades her mother to give her a note for her teacher to allow her to eat at the canteen, and to give her a packed lunch. Her mother is reluctant at first since she is worried that a packed lunch will be expensive but upon her daughter’s insistence, she relents. She prepares a rice sandwich for Esperanza as they’re too poor to afford lunch meats and gives her the note. The Sister at Esperanza’s school doesn’t allow Esperanza to eat at the canteen at first since she thinks that Esperanza lives very close to the school. She points out run-down tenements near the school and asks if Esperanza lives there, and she agrees even though it isn’t true. She is allowed to eat at the canteen on that day, but she is far too upset by the conversation to care about the experience.
