West 1

Michael West

Villasenor

English I-P, Period 1

10 November 2010

They’re More than Just Woman

“I love it when you call me Big Poppa/You got a gun in yo waist please don’t shoot up the place/ because I see some ladies tonight that should be having my baby, babayyy” –

Notorious B.I.G. Biggy demonstrates his views for women in his song “Big Poppa” these lines from the song show that he sees women as a sexual object, one of the many stereotypes portrayed in Sandra Cisneros’s book The House on Mango Street. The story was based on a neighborhood in which Cisneros was a counselor for in a poverty-stricken neighborhood in

Chicago. This neighborhood consisted mainly of Hispanics or Latinos. One of these Latinos is

Esperanza (a fictional character), or our narrator. She explains the lives the women of her neighborhood are forced to live. Due to the Mexican-American culture, these women are expected to take care of the family, whether they are a daughter or a wife. They are subjected to the men in their life’s “rule”. Fortunately not all the women follow this life cycle of being told what to do. Some women get out of that lifestyle with their skills, or smarts. These women are our Non-conformist. Some women are conditioned to this lifestyle while others break this cycle.

In the Mexican American culture, it is the women’s job to be a caregiver/mother to the kids. The father takes little part in helping raise the kids. Two women who show this mother/ caregiver role is Mrs. Cordero, Esperanza’s mom, and Minerva. Mrs. Cordero tends to do most of the caring for her children, seeing it as her job in this society. An example is when Esperanza asks her mom to make her a lunch to take to school, and her mother responds bitterly, tired of the West 2 work her kids put on her. Esperanza explains “I got it into my head to ask my mother to make me a sandwich and write a note to the principal so I could eat in the canteen too. Oh no, she says pointing the butter knife at me as if I’m starting trouble, no sir. Next thing you know everybody will be wanting a bag lunch- I’ll be up all night cutting bread into little triangles, this one with mayonnaise, this one with mustard, no pickles on mine, but mustard on one side please”

(Cisneros 43-44). Mrs. Cordero is clearly frustrated with the tasks she must do for her children, as a mother/caregiver, but there is nothing to do because, it is her job. Esperanza never asked her dad to do these things because it is not a men’s place in her household to tend to the children.

That is her mom’s job, and Esperanza knows that, thus putting her mother into that mother/caregiver role. Minerva is a woman who also lives in Esperanza’s neighborhood. She is young with two children. She also has been trapped into the mother/caregiver role. Her husband beats her and leaves. When he comes back, she forgives him. This continues in a cycle, just as she continued the cycle of being a mother/caregiver. “Her [Minerva’s] mother raised her alone and it looks like her daughters will go that way too” (Cisneros 84). Referring to Minerva’s mother who had to raise Minerva alone, when Minerva puts out her abusive husband for good she will be stuck taking care of her kids alone. This continues the cycle of women being forced into that mother caregiver role, until someone decides to get out.

The young females who have mothers to take care of the kids are forced into a role known as the dutiful daughter. Our two examples of this are our narrator, Esperanza and Alicia.

Alicia’s mother has died and since she is the oldest female she has inherited her mother’s jobs and duties, which isn’t limited to just household chores. “Alicia, whose mama died, is sorry there is no one older to rise and make the lunchbox tortillas. Alicia, who inherited her mama’s rolling pin and sleepiness” (Cisneros 31). The duties her mother used to do is now her duties again West 3 showing a cycle of how men demean women into specific types of people. “[Alicia] is afraid of nothing but four-legged fur. And fathers.” (Cisneros 32). Alicia sees mice which her father exclaims to her don’t exist. The mice Alicia sees aren’t actually mice, but it is a metaphor for how her father scurries into her room and rapes her. Her mother used to fulfill her fathers sex need. Now that her mom is gone, Alicia has to inherit this duty too. Esperanza’s situation isn’t as bad her father doesn’t rape her and her mother isn’t dead, but she still must conform to certain duties as a daughter. When her Grandpa dies, Esperanza’s died cries to her for help. “Because I am the oldest, my father has told me first, and how it is my turn to tell the others. I will have to tell them why we can’t play I will have to tell them why to be quiet today” (Cisneros 56-57). Her father has come to her for help because she is the oldest. Esperanza must do these things to help her saddened father out. Her father is to upset to tell the little kids to do these things so

Esperanza as the dutiful must do these things. Sometimes these roles aren’t always that harsh, and other times they are very harsh. Either way the fact that the girls are expected to these things is very stereotypical.

Some women, known as our non-conformist, try to break free form the birdcage neighborhood they live in. These women are Esperanza and Alicia. They both have a lot in common. They share the quality of being very smart, and as most non-conformists do, they use their brain to escape from Mango Street. “Alicia, is young and smart and studies for the first time at the university” (Cisneros 31). As she works hard being a dutiful daughter to her father, she also works hard to get out of that position. Her father (as already stated) rapes her and forces her to do house work such as cooking for her younger siblings. She doesn’t want to end up like her mother who too had to cook and clean for her husband. She inherited these daily chores and tasks from her mother who passed away. Knowing what this lifestyle is like, she decides she doesn’t West 4 want to continue the cycle of women being oppressed by their husband and decides to get an education in the hope that she can fend for herself when she moves out. She uses her brain to get out of Mango Street stopping the cycle at her generation. Like Alicia, Esperanza has hop for moving out of Mango Street too. “One day I will pack my bags of books and paper. One day I will say goodbye to Mango. I am too strong for her to keep me her forever. One day I will go away forever” (Cisneros 110). Esperanza was good at writing poems and she read them to her aunt. Her aunt told her that she could use her writing to get out of Mango Street. Esperanza now knows that what her aunt told her is true, and she decides to use her talent of writing to get away from Mango Street. Like a true non-conformist she knows that she is “too strong” for the cycle to force her into a society in which she doesn’t want to live. She is too determined to use her smarts to escape Mango Street.

Like the women in House on Mango Street, I know a few women who have lived in the cycle of being stereotyped into various roles. My grandma was like Alicia, a dutiful daughter.

When her father came home he had expected a cooked meal on the table. She had to cook that meal. On the weekends my grandmother was expected to clean the house too. Her father as abusive and when those things weren’t done he would hit her. My grandmother also was molested as a child. Sometimes being the only girl in the house she had many things to do, and unfortunately sex was a task that needed to be filled. My grandmother, who also got pregnant at a young age, was forced to move out with her boyfriend. She continued her duties except she did them for her husband until my mom and aunt were old enough to be a dutiful daughter. My mom had the same household chores as my grandma except hers were split with her sister. Also on the bright side my mom was never molested. Between her and her sister, they had to cook clean and care for each other, doing each others hair nails etc., whatever was necessary. When my aunt West 5 moved out and joined the Air Force my mom was forced to cook a meal every night. My mom often complained so she decided that she didn’t want to live this lifestyle at a young age. When her friends were smoking she became the supervisor because her friends knew she had the potential to become a doctor. When she graduated for Eisenhower High school, she was voted most likely to succeed, and she did succeed she became a Family Practitioner, and she got married to a husband who has no problems cleaning on the weekends and cooking when needed.

Both my parents care for me and my siblings because they have no stereotypes; they live in a mutual relationship. My mom has done more than just succeed in reaching her goal in becoming a doctor, but she also has broken the cycle of only women being caregivers and dutiful daughters. She is a true non-conformist, because even though she is the only women in the house, I find myself cleaning.

The women in this neighborhood are forced into stereotypical roles, through a cycle of man demoralizing women. On the bright side, a few women break out of that cycle. These women use there brains and God-given talents to allow themselves to better than the other women who just except the way their life is. Fortunately, this also works in our own neighborhood just as it does in the story. Women can higher themselves even if they are stuck in this cycle. The women who know that they are to good to be thought of as an inferior species are the ones who strive to be the best they can be because they know they are better than the way they are being treated.