If you were named after someone in your family, tell a story about that person. What does freedom mean to you? Individualism vs.
Rafaela, Minerva, Mamacita, and Sally — after her marriage — are all overpowered by their husbands, physically or otherwise, as a matter of course. Many people have said it was how they came to know about Latino life.
Esperanza describes her "sexual initiation"—an assault by a group of Anglo-American boys while awaiting her friend Sally at the fairground.
If we change ourselves, it can affect everyone who comes into contact with us. A key work from a major Hispanic American writer; recommended for public libraries. The only surviving daughter, she considered herself the "odd number in a set of men".
How does the Monkey Garden change? I wrote [those last lines] when I was very young.
Write descriptions of: a a place, using sounds; b a piece of music, using smells; c a meal, using colors; d a person, using taste and touch. Caramelo is a romantic tale of homelands, sometimes real, sometimes imagined. Cisneros famously angered the uptight keepers of the King William deed restrictions by painting the house periwinkle, and she tells the story of how the dispute — which made national news — was ultimately settled.