Esperanza
Supporting Characters
Significant Quotes
(Tell us your thoughts)
Events
Miscellaneous
100

The names of each person in Esperanza's family.

Who are Papa, Mama, Carlos, Kiki, Esperanza and Nenny?

100

The lady with tons of cats

Who is Cathy 

100

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.

100

What Rachel, Lucy, and Esperanza purchased together.

What is a bike?

100

The city the story is based in.

What is Chicago?

200

The person that Esperanza is named after.

Who is her great-grandmother?

200

Who spends her days sitting by the window?

Who is Esperanza’s great-grandmother?

200

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.

200

The item that Nenny wants to purchase from Gil's junk shop.

What is a music box?

200

The author of The House on Mango Street.

Who is Sandra Cisneros?

300

The meaning of Esperanza's name in English.

What is hope?

300

One of Esperanza’s friends/neighbors who attends college.

Who is Alicia?

300

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.

300

This incident forced Esperanza's family to move out.

What are broken pipes that the landlord would not fix?

300

All six family members have to share this.

What is a bedroom?

400

The thing that Esperanza yearns for above all else?

What is a home of her own?

400

The place where Marin is from.

What is Puerto Rico?

400

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.

400

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".

400

The animal represents the Chinese year of Esperanza and her great-grandmother's birthday.

What is a horse?

500

The new name Esperanza wants to pick for herself.

What is Zeze the X?

500

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 

500

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. 

500

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.

500

The person who assumingly stole the yellow Cadillac and drove the kids around the neighborhood.

Louie's cousin (name unknown).