Hill and Darragh (2017) talk about how YAL represents how “most of the teenaged protagonists were actively engaged in improving their lives making decisions in their and their family’s best interest.”
Esperanza in The House on Mango Street has always shown an interest in owning a house that she can call her own, not depending on lotteries, or her father, or husband. She sees herself as her only option to come out of her neighborhood, improve her living conditions, and be a savior to all others who cannot. This decision did not come overnight but with the witnessing and experiencing social and cultural restrictions around her.
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Along with introductions of her different kinds of neighbors and family members, Esperanza upholds the lives of sadness and laughter, mostly sorrow, of the “dangerous” people of their “neighborhood” (p. 28). The first thing one notices is the great divide between the underprivileged poor people and the people “of another color” (p. 28). Esperanza says- “Those who don’t know any better come into our neighborhood scared. They think we are dangerous…. All brown all around and we are safe. But watch us drive into a neighborhood of another color and our knees go shakity-shake and our car windows get rolled up tight…” (p. 28)These lines from the chapter “Those Who Don’t” indicate the differences, disparity and the divide there is between the classes. Even in school, Esperanza experiences humiliation when she is not allowed to have lunch in the canteen. Because of this divide, Cathy hesitates to be her friend and ultimately leaves her.
Early marriage, trapped in houses, and domestic violence and sexual assaults at an early age are repeatedly seen and experienced by young Esperanza who decides, thus, not to “grow up tame like the others” (p. 88), not wait for a husband but be “like a man” (89) herself. She sees multiple girls and women like Rafaela, Minerva, and Sally getting married and being victims of house arrest and domestic violence and she also sees the singular girl like Alicia who is a rare example of a neighborhood girl who has not tried to escape the neighborhood through marriage, but instead works hard and hopes to change her life from within. This inspires Esperanza to be like her and read books.
She also gets the support of her parents who push themselves to work harder to give her education. She is sent to a Catholic high school instead of a public school. Her mother narrates how her shame restricted her from going to school even when she was a brilliant student and advises Esperanza not to be ashamed, ashamed of her upbringing, of her background, of other people with more advantages and opportunities. I think it is also from Alicia that Esperanza learns not to forget her roots “Like it or not you are Mango Street, and one day you will come back too” (p. 106).
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