The House on Mango Street

"No, this isn't my house I sat 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." (Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street)

This qoute by Esperanza and the book, The House on Mango Street, as a whole reminds me of two songs from Les Miserables: On My Own and I Dreamed a Dream. In this musical, interpreted from the book by Victor Hugo, a young lady named Eponine is madly in love with a man from the city where she lives, but he is in love with another woman. After certain events she realizes that she will never be with him. Lyrics from her song include:

"I love him

 but everyday I'm learning

 all my life I've only been pretending

 Without me

 his world would go on turning

 A World that's full of happiness

 that I have never known"

Esperanza also has to face her reality during the book that she is part of Mango Street despite all her efforts to fight against it. Throughout the book Esperanza met many other woman that shared similar traits that she does. Along with her friends she discovers her maturing body, like hips and an interest in boys. She also met older women who "escaped" from mango street just like she did through writing and education. Towards the end of the book Esperanza realizes that mango street will always be a part of her although she may not want it to be.

Another fantastic song from Les Miserables is sang by a character named Fantine who has just been fired and is abandoned. She sings:

"I had a dream my life would

 be so different from this hell I'm living

 So different now from what it seemed

 Now life has killed

 the dream I dreamed."

This song also reminds me of several of the women in the novel. The novel starts with Esperanza as a child, and as it progresses she has more and more experiences, like being raped, that shatter her childhood dreams and make her grow up too quickly. There are also several women who talk about waiting for a man to come and marry them to take them away. Despite all of this talk, this never actually happens in the book. Unfortunately decisions we make or outside forces that we cannot control shatter the childhood dreams that we have. 

Ihum 260

I took this class because my wife is from Mexico City and I thought that it would be a good opportunity to learn more about her culture. I have really enjoyed everything, and feel that I have learned a lot throughout the semester. My favorite material would be Bless Me, Ultima and Latin paintings section.

The main thing that I liked about Bless Me, Ultima was that it reminded me of my childhood. There were a lot of scenes from the book that brought back fond memories of things that my friends and I did. I almost died laughing during the play, when all the kids were out of control. I especially remember a part when one of the kids swears in Spanish and the teacher asked him what that meant and he said something like (I don’t remember the exact words) it means lets go. Even more important than the memories that the book reminded me of was the lessons learned from it. Personally, one of the biggest takeaways from the book is tolerance of others people and their beliefs. I cringed at the part that the little kids were saying that Florence was going to go to hell because he wasn’t Catholic. Those scenes made his death very powerful. Can you imagine what the kids must have felt like after his death? It is also obvious that they would not act that way if they hadn’t learned it from their parents. Living in a Mormon community it was a good reminder of the example that I should set and how we all should treat everyone, whether we have the same beliefs or not.

I really enjoyed the paintings that we studied because I could see the progression of how Latin American artists created their own genre. I feel like they started doing what was being done in other parts of the world but then strayed from that and created their own style that screams Mexican Culture with every fiber and paint stroke.

Bless Me, Ultima

"Life is filled with sadness when a boy grows to be a man. But as you grow into manhood you must not despair life, but gather strength to sustain you, can you understand that." (Rudolfo Anaya, Bless Me, Ultima, pg. 245)

One of the main themes of Bless Me, Ultima is the growth of Tony from a boy to a man. Unfortunately for Tony, his growth to a boy began early with dramatic experiences like seeing Lupito, Narcisco and Florence die. 

How Tony became a man reminded me of the new James Bond movie, Skyfall. At one point in the movie James Bond returns to his childhood home, where he had witnessed his parents death as a young boy. There is a scene where his old game keeper shows M, Bonds boss, a secret passage that leads to a church. He says that when Bonds parents died he hid in the passage for several days. He then says that Bond entered the secret passage as a boy, but came out a man. 

A similar experience is lived by Tony in Bless Me, Ultima. It is interesting how Anaya writes about the different deaths that Tony sees. At the beginning of the book he sees Lupito, a man who was crazy and killed the sheriff, get shot near the bridge. Towards the middle of the book he witnesses Narcisco, who was trying to save Ultima, get murdered by Tenorio. At the end of the book he sees Florence, and innocent boy who doesn't believe in God, drown. Because of living these experiences he is shipped off to work at his uncle's farm, where he uses these experiences to become a man.

Tony continually questions why all these things have happened. He seeks the wisdom of his father on the way to the farm. He finally understands Ultimas message for him, quoted above, that he must take all these life experiences and use them to become a man and a better person, a person that can help and care for other people, like Ultima. Tony's father articulated this idea to Tony when he told him:

"Understanding comes with life, as a man grows he sees life and death, he is happy and sad, he works, plays, meets people, sometimes it takes a lifetime to acquire understanding, because in the end understanding simply means having sympathy for people, Ultima has sympathy for people, and it is so complete that with it she can touch their souls and cure them." (Rodulfo Anaya, Bless me, Ultima, pg. 248) 

It is a lesson that everyone could benefit from learning. 

Bless Me, Ultima

"They all gathered around me and asked me where I live and about school. They were good friends, even though they sometimes said bad words, and that day I became a part of their gang." (Bless Me, Ultima, Rudolfo Anaya, pg. 38)

I have never been to New Mexico, I did not grow up speaking Spanish, my father is not a cowboy, and my mother is not a farmer yet Rudolfo Anaya finds a beautiful way to help me connect with his book, Bless Me, Ultima. This is achieved by simple experiences that Antonio has in the novel, that break down cultural and human barriers, to unite long lost feelings of child hood. The passage above reminds me of the movie 'The Sandlot' and numerous childhood experiences. 

In the movie The Sandlot the main character, Smalls, moves to a new city and doesn't have any friends. The local gang of kids are baseball fanatics, and although Smalls doesn't know how to play baseball he dreams of joining the group of friends. Rodriguez, the group leader, takes Smalls into the fold and helps him to become part of the group.

In 'Bless Me, Ultima' Antonio goes behind the church because he knows that is where the kids from school hang out. He mentions that he doesn't actually know them but has learned their names and personalities from watching and observing them. He talks about Horse, Bones and Vitamin Kid and why they have those nicknames. It is obvious that he has carefully observed them and dreamed of being part of the group. When Horse notices him for the first time and Antonio flips him, he immediately becomes part of the group, similar to what happens with Smalls.

The two stories also remind me of each other because of the nicknames that each kid has. Similar to Bless Me, Ultima, in the sandlot all the kids have nicknames like Ham, Yeah-Yeah, and Squints which resemble their physical and personality traits.

What these two stories achieve is a masterful connection with our childhood feelings and memories. Personally, while reading or watching these stories,  I remember the change from Elementary School to Middle School and the feelings that I had being accepted into my group of friends. Memories of my friends nicknames like ffl, tuna, and tubs come to mind. I find myself immersed in the stories because they seem so similar to my personal experiences. That is the complicated formula that Anaya and few others have mastered and used to create classics like Bless Me, Ultima or The Sandlot.