Esperanza
The names of each person in Esperanza's family.
Who are Papa, Mama, Carlos, Kiki, Esperanza and Nenny?
The lady with tons of cats
Who is Cathy
Significance of this quote: "Marin, under the streetlight, dancing by herself, is singing the same song somewhere. I know. Is waiting for a car to stop, a star to fall, someone to change her life."
Expressed the importance of women in this novel waiting for a man to solve their problems and give them a way to escape.
What Rachel, Lucy, and Esperanza purchased together.
What is a bike?
The city the story is based in.
What is Chicago?
The person that Esperanza is named after.
Who is her great-grandmother?
Who spends her days sitting by the window?
Who is Esperanza’s great-grandmother?
Significance of this quote: "Someday I will have a best friend all my own. One I can tell my secrets to. One who will understand my jokes without my having to explain them. Until then I am a red balloon, a balloon tied to an anchor."
Esperanza feels as if she is responsible for her younger sister, Nenny when they are roaming the neighborhood with the other kids. This prevents Esperanza from having a best friend, and therefore a personal life, of her own. Nenny will be Esperanza's "anchor" until Nenny is old enough to take care of herself.
The item that Nenny wants to purchase from Gil's junk shop.
What is a music box?
The author of The House on Mango Street.
Who is Sandra Cisneros?
The meaning of Esperanza's name in English.
What is hope?
One of Esperanza’s friends/neighbors who attends college.
Who is Alicia?
Significance of this quote: "All brown all around, 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 and our eyes look straight."
She can judge other neighborhoods but her fear is coming from being judged herself, based on her skin color.
This incident forced Esperanza's family to move out.
What are broken pipes that the landlord would not fix?
All six family members have to share this.
What is a bedroom?
The thing that Esperanza yearns for above all else?
What is a home of her own?
The place where Marin is from.
What is Puerto Rico?
Significance of this quote: "I have inherited her name, but I don't want to inherit her place by the window."
Esperanza does not want to fall into the stereotypical female identity. Esperanza wants to be strong, independent, and happy. Not sad, sitting at a window waiting for her husband, like her grandmother.
The reason that Cathy (one of the neighbors) moved from the neighborhood.
She thought the neighborhood was getting bad and she wanted to get away from "people like Esperanza".
The animal represents the Chinese year of Esperanza and her great-grandmother's birthday.
What is a horse?
The new name Esperanza wants to pick for herself.
What is Zeze the X?
The person who makes Esperanza feel ashamed of her house by making her point it out while she is playing in the street.
Who is a nun
Significance of this quote: " Those who don't know any better come into our neighborhood scared. They think we're dangerous. they think we will attack them with shiny knives. they are stupid people who are lost and got here by mistake" (pg. 28)
Esperanza knows the truth and that most people in her area wouldn't do such a thing, she just wishes that people wouldn't think that. She felt like the community she lived in was looked down upon because of the people who lived there.
What is the significance of Rosa Vargas in the novel?
She's the neighbor with a lot of children with a husband that left her. One of her children, Angel Vargas, falls from a great height and dies. People assume she will not get anywhere in life because she has to care for her many children.
The person who assumingly stole the yellow Cadillac and drove the kids around the neighborhood.
Louie's cousin (name unknown).