House on Mango Street Blog #5

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I really enjoyed reading The House of Mango Street because it related to culture and also I loved that it was displayed through the life of a young girl. There were even more themes that stood out in the book to me and that was language, society, family, and gender roles. Sandra Cisneros definitely did a great job showing the reality behind many minorities that live in America.  While in class we discussed the question that many of us had on our minds and that was, “Why does Cisneros decide not to use quotations when dialogue is taking place?”. I learned something new when we discussed it because I never knew that this was the way that Spanish authors write. That was definitely the biggest question for me when I first began to read the book but as I continued on it definitely was easier getting used to and I enjoyed reading it. 

One of my best friends who is from Colombia moved here while in elementary school. She explained to me that she did not know any English at all when she first moved here but that she would listen to people around her at school and that was the way she became better at it. I have always thought that it was so amazing that she is now fluent in two languages because that is something I have always wished to be able to do. We can see that this connects to the book because Esperanza lives around Hispanic culture while at home and she sees that when people do not know English they have it a little hard while living here in America because they may not be able to understand others around them. My friend has stated to me that she loves being able to speak to her family with their language and also loves that she’s able to connect with people here and not feel left out. 

I agree with the authors portrayal of adolescence in this book because we all have went through the stages of puberty when we start to like boys and life just starts to change. This book would definitely be one that I would let my students read because it lets us view things from someone else’s point of view and has a great story behind it. 

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