Home Sweet Home?

What I find interesting about the affect living on Mango Street has on Esperanza is that she goes from believing she does not belong to knowing she does and not being happy to accept it. When she talks to Alicia about how she is jealous of her home in Guadalajara and Alicia reminds her she has a home on Mango Street, Esperanza replies, "No, this isn’t my house I say and shake my head as if shaking could undo the year I’ve lived here. I don’t belong. I don’t ever want to come from here." Although she still believes herself to be better than Mango Street she does seem to recognize that it is in fact her home weather she feels she belongs or not. This passion to be above Mango Street provides her with inspiration. She tells her story and writes poems and claims that one day she will leave Mango Street and have a beautiful house of her own where she takes in homeless people and helps her friends that are still on Mango Street to escape.

Towards the beginning of the story Esperanza expresses contempt about being Mexican. Do you think her unchanging hatred of Mango Street suggests she still feels this way in the end or is it just a separate hatred of the street itself? How do you think she will one day be able to escape the street? Or do you think she never will?