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ecember 1^st is Rosa Parks Day! Some places celebrate Rosa Parks on her birthday in February. But, in keeping with the legislation introduced by Representatives, Terri Sewell, Joyce Beatty, and Steven Horsford to make Rosa Parks Day a federal holiday, we’re commemorating it on the day of her history-making arrest.

As representative Sewell noted:

On December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks sat so that this nation could stand up for the values that our democracy holds so dear.

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Representative Beatty also pointed out:

Rosa Parks changed the course of history when she refused to give up her seat on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama – sparking a revolution that ignited the Civil Rights movement. She epitomized the Power of One.

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Plus, representative Horsford admonished:

Her brave and bold actions helped launch a movement for progress and equality, and her story must continue to be told as part of our nation’s history. [1]

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And teachers are determined to make sure this happens.

Despite recent movements to silence teaching about race and racism, teachers are doing their best to ensure that stories like Rosa Parks’ are told. Students engaging in an honest reckoning with our past is essential to creating a more just and equitable society, not to mention democracy itself. And teachers take that responsibility very seriously, as demonstrated in the NCTE’s (National Council of Teachers of English) position statement on antiracist teaching seen below:

Educators’ Right and Responsibilities to Engage in Antiracist Teaching

Overview

Knowledge of the past exists to serve the needs of the living. In the current context, this includes an honest reckoning with all aspects of that past. Americans of all ages deserve nothing less than a free and open exchange about history and the forces that shape our world today, an exchange that should take place inside the classroom as well as in the public realm generally. To ban the tools that enable those discussions is to deprive us all of the tools necessary for citizenship in the 21st century. A whitewashed view of history cannot change what happened in the past. A free and open society depends on the unrestricted pursuit and dissemination of knowledge. (American Historical Association)

Recently, an honest reckoning with the past has come under renewed attack at the federal, state, and local levels. Legislation has been proposed to cut federal funding for schools that use lessons based on the New York Times’s 1619 Project (Ujifusa, 2021) and 27 states with legislation either passed, pending, or under discussion would severely limit K–12 and university educators’ ability to engage with critical race theory (CRT) and antiracist teaching. Such legislation is “designed to stifle a full exploration of the role of race and racism in United States history” (Association of American Law Schools, 2021). In fact, such legislation stands in opposition to the principles of academic freedom and the comprehensive teaching of history, literature, sciences, and social sciences that are so integral to maintaining a democratic society.

Recognizing that the motivation behind this legislation comes from a desire to silence teaching about race and racism, we also know that many people support these bills because they are informed by divisive soundbites used to provoke fear and knee-jerk reactions. As a result, while many educators, educational leaders, and community members across the country may sense that the bills are unjust, they may also lack the necessary background to fully understand, support, and/or actualize their concerns.

This statement addresses these realities and asserts that antiracism must be a collective effort with educators, students, and community members working as partners, taking action together to bring about social change (Kinloch, 2017) grounded in our belief that “Americans of all ages deserve nothing less than a free and open exchange about history and the forces that shape our world today, an exchange that should take place inside the classroom as well as in the public realm generally” (American Historical Association, 2021). With this foundation, this statement was developed in response to legislation that obstructs antiracist pedagogical efforts to create a more just and equitable society, the principles of academic freedom (e.g., 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure), and the right to teach about systemic and ideological racism.

Statement

The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) actively follows recommendations put forth by the Committee Against Racism and Bias in the Teaching of English and the NCTE Statement on Anti-Racism to Support Teaching and Learning (2007/2018) to inform and support accurate public discourse around antiracist education. Drawing from and remaining consistent with earlier assertions, educators have both the right and responsibility to engage in antiracist teaching. Recommendations on how to do so include:

• Identify and challenge individual and/or systemic acts of racism and other forms of discrimination and bigotry in educational institutions and within our profession, exposing such acts through external communications and publications.
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• Express declarations of solidarity with people of diverse human, cultural, and racial backgrounds to eradicate all forms of racism, bias, and prejudice in spaces of teaching and learning.
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• Promote not only cultural diversity and expansive forms of linguistic knowledge, but also explicitly advocate for antiracism by participating in ongoing professional development for educators to productively counter racism and other forms of bigotry.
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• Support the enforcement of laws and policies that provide sanctions against racial and ethnic discrimination in education. Also, advocate for legislative reform that will lead to policies that provide sanctions against discrimination in education based on race, ethnicity, gender, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, class, mental and physical abilities, nationality, and migrant, immigrant, and refugee status.

Furthermore

• Administrators should secure funds and resources to provide opportunities for professional development for teachers and instructional programs that affirm cultural diversity and expansive forms of linguistic knowledge among all students.
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• All educational stakeholders—policymakers, parents and families, and the general public—understand that they can best support educators or teacher professionals and students by actively participating in public conversations about racism and bigotry in our multilingual and multicultural American society, defined in the key opening words of the United States Constitution’s Preamble, “We the People . . . . ”

NCTE also advocates for support for educators at all levels, administrators, students, parents and families, and communities to deepen understandings of antiracist education that includes and emphasizes:

• the importance of antiracist education in a democratic society;
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• that teaching racial histories and antiracist education do not constitute anti-Americanism but serve as one element in an education that supports the development of informed citizens who can work toward a more equitable society;
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• antiracist education as the antithesis of teaching that one race is superior to another or that anyone should feel guilty for the past actions of members of their race; and that “educators must provide an accurate view of the past in order to better prepare students for community participation and robust civic engagement” (American Historical Association, 2021) in the present and into the future;
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• antiracist teaching as that which encompasses the complexity of history including but not limited to systemic and ideological racism, as well as nuances and rich histories of who we are as peoples, including joys, accomplishments, resistance, and resilience;
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• research demonstrating how children receive racialized messages in the first years of life, necessitating that antiracist education begin with our youngest children;
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• strategies for countering rhetoric of fear and reactions to it that would prohibit antiracist teaching at any level (legislation, book bans, curricular bans, withdrawal of funding, etc.);
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• clarification that critical race theory is one of many research-based theoretical frameworks (such as behaviorist, sociocultural, constructivist, critical disabilities, and feminist theories, to name a few) originating in legal studies in the 1970s as a framework for “understanding . . . racial inequity within our social, economic, political, legal, and educational systems . . . even absent of individual racist intent . . . among other exclusionary systems [sexism, classism, homophobia, etc.]” (American Association of Law Schools, 2021).

Stories like Rosa Parks’ matter, because they’re part of our nation’s history. And teachers are on the front lines in the battle against silencing education about race and racism in this country. As this position statement demonstrates, they take this responsibility very seriously.

t’s Native American Heritage Month! November has been designated as a time to recognize the contributions, and unique, essential achievements of Native peoples both past and present.

Examples of fundamental contributions to our society include:

• Native Americans cultivated corn to make it more edible and bountiful. Then they taught European colonists how to grow it.[1]
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• We can thank Native Americans for baby bottles and infant formula too.[2]
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• And then, there’s American democracy itself. Delegates to the Constitutional Convention drew inspiration from the centuries-old Iroquois Confederacy.[3]

Native American communities have passed down rich cultures, traditions, knowledge, and ways of life since time immemorial. Also noted in this year’s presidential Proclamation on National Native American Heritage Month is the difficult historical fact that:

Native people were pressured to assimilate, banned from practicing their traditions and sacred ceremonies, and forced from their homes and ancestral homelands.[4]

So, we’re shining a spotlight on Zitkála-Šá (pronounced Zit-KAH-la-shah), because her compelling accounts of life during this period and growing up in an Indian boarding school, are among the first not to be filtered through a translator.[5] Her books may not have been banned, but she wrote about traditions that were.

Born in 1876 (the same year as Little Big Horn), Zitkála-Šá (which means Red Bird in the Lakota language) was a Yankton Dakota educator, writer, translator, editor, musician, and political activist. In fact, she’s considered one of the most influential Native American activists of the 20^th century.[6]

Also known by her Anglicized and married name Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, Zitkála-Šá was an active member of the Society of American Indians, the first national American Indian rights organization run by, and specifically for, American Indians.[7]

She was also a co-founder of the National Council of American Indians, established in 1926 to advocate for Native people and the civil rights they had long been denied – United States citizenship in particular. She served as president of the council until her death in 1938.[8]

Zitkála-Šá was among the post-Wounded Knee generation of Sioux resistance fighters who realized there was little chance of restoring traditional ways. And, understood that the militant defense that had temporarily sustained a modicum of sovereignty was no longer an option.

So, she used the tools her historical period offered. Utilizing rhetoric, writing, organization, lobbying, and activism, she formulated a response to white rule that called for Indian cultural renewal and political independence.[9]

She sharply criticized the practices of Indian boarding schools she grew up in, highlighting the grievous loss of tribal culture that results from these schools’ assimilationist practices. Concerned about the effect such culture-squashing tactics were having on the tribe’s children, Zitkála-Šá’ set out to become the literary counterpart of her tribe’s oral storytellers:

…while the old people last I want to get from them their treasured ideas of life. This I can do by living among them.[10]

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The stories she collected became her first book Old Indian Legends, which retells stories of Sioux mythological and trickster figures.

Zitkála-Šá also wrote autobiographical stories, allegorical fictions, and essays, which were printed in national publications such as Atlantic Monthly, and Harper’s. This collection of writings became her second book American Indian Stories.[11]

And she wrote the libretto for an opera based on the Sun Dance, Wiwáŋyaŋg Wačípi, the most important ceremony practiced by the Lakota (and nearly all Plains Indians), which was banned by the U.S. government in 1883.[12]

The preface Zitkála-Šá wrote for Old Indian Legends parallels sentiments present in Rudine Sims Bishop’s landmark article Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors.[13]

These legends are relics of our country’s once virgin soil. These and many others are the tales the little black-haired aborigine loved so much to hear beside the night fire.

For him the personified elements and other spirits played in a vast world right around the center fore of the wigwam.

Iktomi, the snare weaver, Iya, the Eater, and Old Double-Face are not wholly fanciful creatures.

There were other worlds of legendary folk for the young aborigine, such as “The Star Men of the Sky,” “The Thunder Birds Blinking Zigzag Lightning,” and “The Mysterious Spirits of Trees and Flowers.”

Under an open sky, nestling close to the earth, the old Dakota story-tellers have told me these legends. In both Dakotas, North and South, I have often listened to the same story told over again by a new story-teller.

While I recognized such a legend without the least difficulty, I found the renderings varying much in little incidents.  Generally one helped the other in restoring some lost link in the original character of the tale. And now I have tried to transplant the native spirit of these tales – roots and all – into the English language, since America in the last few centuries has acquired a second tongue.

The old legends of America belong quite as much to the blue-eyed little patriot as to the black-haired aborigine. And when they are grown tall like the wise grown-ups may they not lack interest in a further study of Indian folklore, a study which so strongly suggests our near kinship with the rest of humanity and points a steady finger toward the great brotherhood of mankind, and by which one is so forcibly impressed with the possible earnestness of life as seen through the teepee door! If it be true that much lies “in the eye of the beholder, then in the American aborigine as in any other race, sincerity of belief, though it were based upon mere optical illusion, demands a little respect.

After all, he seems at heart much like other peoples.[14]

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Zitkála-Šá clearly intended this collection of legends to be a mirror for the young people of her tribe, allowing them to see themselves and their culture portrayed in a loving and respectful manner.

She also makes it clear that these stories are also a window into the world of “the little black-haired aborigine” for “the blue-eyed little patriot.”[15]

And she’s hopeful that this collection of legends will function as a sliding glass door. That it will encourage the white children of her day to grow “tall like the wise grown-ups,” to see “the great brotherhood of mankind,” and understand that her people are “at heart much like other peoples.”[16]

Her books may not have been banned, but Zitkála-Šá was certainly writing about traditions that were. And she was doing so in the hope, like so many free speech activists today, that her efforts would allow a marginalized people to see themselves portrayed with respect. Also, to enlighten readers whose lives were different from those in that community. And in doing so, opening the door for empathy and mutual understanding.

Zitkála-Šá’s writings continue to be enlightening, and remain relevant – every month, not just during Native American Heritage Month.

#history       #Native American Heritage Month        #Zitkala-Sa

Endnotes:

[1] “Corn, Cultivation and Native Americans.” September 30, 2018. Real Archeology.

Kiger, Patrick J. “10 Native American Inventions Commonly Used Today.” October 5, 2023  History.com https://www.history.com/news/native-american-inventions

[2] Parker, Arthur C. “Iroquois Uses of Maize and other Food Plants.” Education Department Bulletin, 1910. New York State Museum. Pg 102.

[3] Little, Becky. “The Native American Government That Helped Inspire the US Constitution.” July 12, 2023. History.com.

[4] “A Proclamation on National Native American Heritage Month.” The White House. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2023/10/31/a-proclamation-on-national-native-american-heritage-month-2023/

[5] Zitkála-Šá. Dreams and Thunder: Stories, Poems, and The Sun Dance Opera. Edited by P. Jane Hafen. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001. Pg xii.

Lewandowski, Tadeusz. Red Bird, Red Power: The Life and Legacy of Zitkála-Šá. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2016. Pg 12.

[6] Zitkála-Šá. Dreams and Thunder: Stories, Poems, and The Sun Dance Opera. Edited by P. Jane Hafen. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001. Pg xvii. According to Dr. Craig Howe (citizen of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, and founder & director of the Center for American Indian Research and Native Studies), Šá is the ceremonial form of “red” and is closer to “scarlet.”

Baym, Nina. Norton Anthology of American Literature (7^th edition). New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2007.

[7] Rappaport, Helen. Encyclopedia of Women Social Reformers.  London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2001. Pp 101-104.

[8] Baym, Nina. Norton Anthology of American Literature (7^th edition). New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2007.

[9] Lewandowski, Tadeusz. Red Bird, Red Power: The Life and Legacy of Zitkála-Šá. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2016. Pp 10-16.  Such demands would later be echoed during the Red Power era of the early 1970s.

[10] Letter to Carlos Montezuma dated February 20, 1901. In Fisher, Dexter. “Zitkála-Šá: The Evolution of a Writer.” American Indian Quarterly, August 1979. Vol. 5, No. 3. Pp 229-238.

[11] A collection of Zitkála-Šá’s letters, speeches, and previously unpublished writings, has recently been compiled and published as part of a series produced by the International Studies in Sociology and Social Anthropology.

[12] The Sun Dance – Wiwáŋyaŋg Wačípi. https://aktalakota.stjo.org/seven-sacred-rites/wiwanyang-wachipi-sun-dance/

[13] Bishop, R. S. “Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors.” Perspectives, 6 (3).

[14] Zitkála-Šá. Old Indian Legends. Boston: Ginn & Company Publishers, 1902. Pp v-vi.

[15] Zitkála-Šá. Old Indian Legends. Boston: Ginn & Company Publishers, 1902. Pp v-vi.

[16] Zitkála-Šá. Old Indian Legends. Boston: Ginn & Company Publishers, 1902. Pp v-vi.

Image:

Gertrude Käsebier, 1898. National Museum of American History-Smithsonian.
http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_1006125

hy is it important to know about literary devices? Like symbolic language, literary devices are techniques that authors use to take their writing beyond its straightforward, literal meaning. They’re tools to guide the reader in how to read a particular work for more than simple plot.

Literary devices are often employed for emphasis or clarity. They’re also used to get a reader to connect more strongly with the story as a whole, specific characters, or even particular themes. And sometimes, they just make the reading more fun… but even that tells us a lot about the author and what they have to say.

Here’s a crash course in some of the more common literary devices:

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Alliteration:

A series of words that start with the same sound. These sounds are typically consonants, so there’s more stress on that syllable. Think tongue twisters, book titles and often poetry.

Example: “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.” In this tongue twister, the “p”  sound is repeated at the beginning of all major words.

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Allusion:

No, this isn’t an illusion, though the two are often confused with one another. An allusion is a reference to a person, place, thing, or even an event outside the text. Many allusions refer to other works of literature.

Example: The title of Steinbeck’s work Of Mice and Men is an allusion to a line in Robert Burn’s 1785 poem To a Mouse, On Turning Her Up In Her Nest With The Plough… “The best-laid schemes of Mice and Men Go oft awry.”

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Anachronism:

This is when someone or something associated with a particular historical time is put in the wrong time period for effect.

Example: The entire premise of Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court hinges on this literary device.

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Anaphora:

When a word or phrase is repeated at the beginning of successive clauses or sentences to create rhythm or emphasis.

Example: J.D. Salinger employed anaphora in The Catcher in the Rye: “It rained on his lousy tombstone, and it rained on the grass on his stomach. It rained all over the place.”

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Anecdote:

A brief story or narrative used to engage the reader, provide real-world context, or humanize abstract concepts.

Example: In Nora Roberts’ Dark Witch, Meara relays an anecdote that provides the audience with insight into the relationship between the book’s main characters:

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I’ll tell you they were in love. Young and wild for each other. Happy in it, though they scraped and squabbled. She was going into seventeen when they came together the first time. It was after they’d been together the mark came on him. He didn’t tell her. I don’t know whether to blame him for that, but he didn’t tell her. And when she found out, she was angry, but more, she was devastated.

Anthropomorphism:

When nonhuman figures become human-like characters.

Example: A lot of cartoon characters function on this device, think SpongeBob Square Pants – kitchen sponges just don’t do the things he does. For that matter, starfish don’t behave like Patrick does either.

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Colloquialism:

The use of informal language and slang, which gives a sense of realism to the way characters speak. But this devise isn’t restricted to dialogue, it can also make any text more relatable… as if the reader is having a conversation with the author.

Example: It’s more colloquial to say “What’s up?” instead of “How are you doing?”

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Double Entendre:

A form of word play where a word or phrase has two possible meanings.

Example: Oscar Wilde’s play The Importance of Being Earnest functions on the double-meaning of the word earnest. Protagonist Jack Worthing leads a double life. To his lover in the countryside, he’s Jack, while his lover in the city knows him as Ernest. After a series of deceptions, this character realizes the necessity of being true to himself. In the final line of the play, Jack comes to understand the importance of being “earnest,” a double entendre on “Ernest.”

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Enjambment:

A literary device used in poetry. Simply put, it’s when the end of a phrase extends past the end of a line.

Example: T. S. Eliot uses enjambment in The Waste Land to evoke the changing seasons. He ends most lines with verbs to describe and emphasize the metamorphosis that is taking place.

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April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.

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Epigraph:

A famous quotation or short passage placed at the beginning of a larger text. As an introduction to a book, or as the header to a chapter. They’re typically written by a different author (with credit given) and serve to introduce overall themes in the work or messages within the chapter in question.

Example: At the beginning of The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway included a quote from poet Gertrude Stein, “You are all a lost generation.” Stein’s words came to define the literary community Hemingway belonged to (which also includes F. Scott Fitzgerald, T. S. Eliot, and Archibald MacLeish).

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Flashback:

An interruption in the narrative that portrays events that have already taken place… either before the work’s established “present” time, or before the time when the narration is taking place. It’s typically used to give the reader more background information about particular characters, plot points, and so on.

Example:  Most of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights is a flashback, as Nelly Dean tells the Lockwood character about the childhoods of Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw, their budding romance and tragic demise.

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Foreshadowing:

When the author hints at what’s going to happen later in the story, through things like description, dialogue, or characters’ actions.

Example: Atticus Finch’s explanation of courage to his children in To Kill a Mockingbird:

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It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.”

This passage foreshadows the outcome of Finch’s legal case.

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Hyperbole:

An exaggerated statement, one not meant to be taken literally by the reader. Used for emphasis, or often for comedic effect.

Example: “I’m so hungry I could eat a horse.” The speaker isn’t actually going to eat an entire horse. That’s a ludicrous proposition, but it serves to emphasize how hungry the speaker is.

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In Medias Res:

This latin phrase is used to describe when a story opens with the main character already in the middle of things, bringing the reader front and center into the fray.

Example: Within the first lines of Homer’s Iliad, the reader is dropped directly into the midst of the Trojan War, the actions of warring Greeks and Trojans unfolding around them.

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Irony:

The colloquial use of this word highlights the difference between “what seems to be” and “what is.” Someone having a bad day, for example, might say that they’re doing “greaaat.” But, when it comes to literature, the irony is typically conditional, creating situations that unfold in ways contrary to what one would expect.

Example: O. Henry’s short story The Gift of the Magi is a classic example of situational irony.  The story revolves around a couple who can’t afford to buy Christmas gifts for each other.  They each sell their most treasured possession, so they buy a gift for the other one. However, they both discover that, because of what each of them chose to sell, their gifts for each other are now unusable.

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Jargon:

A word or phrase specific to a profession or industry, typically only understood by members of the group who use these terms as part of their field of expertise. When used in dialogue, this device can help define a text’s characters.

Example: In 1950s-diner-speak, scrambled eggs on toast is “Adam and Eve on a raft and wreck ’em.”

In the case of George Orwell’s 1984, however, jargon serves to establish Oceania’s dystopian nature.

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The Ministry of Truth, which concerned itself with news, entertainment, education, and the fine arts. The Ministry of Peace, which concerned itself with war. The Ministry of Love, which maintained law and order. And the Ministry of Plenty, which was responsible for economic affairs. Their names, in Newspeak: Minitrue, Minipax, Miniluv, and Miniplenty.

We wouldn’t understand the highlighted words without context, because we’re not part of the world Orwell created.

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Juxtaposition:

Placing contrasting ideas next to each other, typically to produce a thought-proving or ironic effect.

Example: The opening lines of Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities.

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It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us…  

Dickens situates his characters into a world of contrasts, reflecting the extreme wealth disparities of pre-Revolution France.

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Metonym:

When a related word of phrase is substituted for the thing it’s referring to.

Example: “The pen is mightier than the sword.” Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s statement contains two examples: “the pen” referring to the written word, and “the sword” which refers to military force/violence.

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Mood:

The general atmosphere and emotional complexion, designed to evoke particular feelings in the reader. This can be achieved through setting, description, dialogue, and word choice.

Example: Hamlet is about death, grief, and madness. Shakespeare establishes an ominous mood by setting the first scene at night, and there’s a lot of dialogue about being fearful. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, on the other hand, uses fantastical imagery, and lighthearted language set a whimsical mood.

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Motif:

A recurring theme or element in a literary work, typically used to emphasize or reinforce a particular idea or concept.  Motifs can be images, symbols, actions, or phrases, that appear throughout a text.

Example: The color green in Shakespeare’s Othello represents jealousy. And, fire is a motif that appears throughout Jane Eyre, appearing around situations dealing with strong emotions.

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Onomatopoeia:

A word, or group of words, that imitates the sound it stands for.

Example: Honk, pow, meow, bow-wow, boom, clip-clop, plop are just a few.

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Oxymoron:

A figure of speech where contradictory terms appear together. They’re useful in creating unexpected or comical contrast.

Example: In The Call of the Wild, Jack London describes the Aurora Borealis as “flaming coldly.” Jumbo shrimp, and deafening silence are a couple of others.

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Paradox:

A statement that seems illogical or self-contradictory, but upon investigation, might turn out to be true.

Example: Hamlet’s line, “I must be cruel only to be kind.” Or Yogi Berra’s observation “nobody goes there anymore – it’s too crowded.”

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Paronomasia, better known as a pun:

A form of word play that functions on multiple meanings of a term or similar-sounding words to create humor, or a sense of playfulness.

Example: “I used to be a baker, but I couldn’t make enough dough.” Here’s another one for ya’: “Time flies like an arrow; and fruit flies like a banana.”

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Personification:

When a nonhuman figure or abstract element is described as having human characteristics. This differs from anthropomorphism, where non-human figures become  human-like characters.

Example: A rug that’s tired of being stepped on. When Rita hears the last piece of pie calling her name. Or when lightning dances across the sky.

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Satire:

A genre that criticizes something, such as a person, belief, government, or society, typically employing humor, irony, and hyperbole to make the author’s point.

Example: In Gulliver’s Travels when Jonathan Swift depicts Lilliputians as being at war with the empire of Blefuscu over religious doctrine that mandates which end of an egg should be broken.

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Soliloquy:

A type of monologue often used in dramas, when a character speaks to themself, and in doing so, reveals their inner thoughts and feelings to the reader/audience.

Example: Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” speech is probably the best-known soliloquy in the world.

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Synecdoche:

When part of something is used to represent the whole. It’s similar to a metonym, the difference being that a metonym doesn’t necessarily represent the whole – merely something associated with the word used.

Example: “The crown” is a synecdoche for the monarchy. Shouting “all hands on deck” is clearly a call for whole human beings.

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Tone:

This device has the power to shape the entire narrative. It’s closely related to mood. While mood is the overall feeling of a text, however, tone conveys the narrator’s attitude, opinion, or feelings about the situation being described.

Example: When describing the setting of a party, does the narrator characterize the red light falling a door as “fallen rose petals” or as “a smear of blood”? Needless to say, the difference between these two phrases lets the reader know whether the narrator is looking forward to this event, or terrified of it.

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Verisimilitude:

The appearance of being real or true in a literary work. It’s employed to make stories more believable and convincing.

Example: Realistic dialogue that reflects how people actually speak, or spoke during a particular period in history. Detailed descriptions of settings create a sense of place. Accuracy is key when describing an actual location.

Check out these companion articles on The Art of Reading:

Novels Are Like a Layer Cake,
Be Sure to Get Every Bite.

#the art of reading      #literary devices     #symbolic language

Sources:

Muniz, Hannah, “The 31 Literary Devices You Must Know.” January 25, 2020. PrepScholar.
https://blog.prepscholar.com/list-of-literary-devices-techniques

Glatch, Sean. “112 Common Literary Devices: Definitions, Examples, and Exercises.” January 26, 2023. Writers.com.
https://writers.com/common-literary-devices

“Literary Devices: 55+ to Enrich Your Writing.” Self-Publishing School.
https://self-publishingschool.com/literary-devices/

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Image:

Photo by Hunter Haley on Unsplash

FYI:

This Book is Banned participates in the Amazon.com affiliate program, where we earn a small commission by linking to books (but the price remains the same to you).  This allows us to remain free, and ad free. [Our privacy policy]

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s a parent, it’s easy to get caught up in daily concerns like deadlines, finances, and health. All too often, it seems like there just isn’t time to settle down with your children and crack open a good book. It’s National Family Literacy Day, so carve out some time to read with your young ones today, or perhaps read to them.

Families have a lot to gain from reading together, and it’s never too late to start a good habit like family reading hour. Reading together not only provides valuable family bonding time, it helps your kids become better students and thinkers. And that doesn’t just apply to toddlers and kindergartners.

Over 50% of five-year-olds are read aloud to 5-7 days a week. But, this number drops dramatically with each additional year of age. The most common reason cited is that at this point “children can read on their own.”[1] But, it’s beneficial to continue reading to kids even after they become tweens and teens.

This diminishing percentage of children who are read aloud to parallels the striking drop in reading test scores between fourth and eighth grade testing brackets.

International statistics indicate that American children under the age of 10 are proficient at identifying words and summarizing the main topic of a text. By age 15, however, only 14% of U.S. children excel at reading.[2]

Reading aloud to our tweens and teens addresses a number of the issues that lead to the poor reading scores we see beyond the eighth grade.

As Susan Engel (senior lecturer of developmental psychology and founding director of the Program in Teaching at Williams College), and Catherine Snow (linguist and professor of cognition and education at the Harvard Graduate School of  Education) point out, “probing conversation is key to helping children become good readers.” [3]

When kids are more engaged, comprehension improves. Reading aloud allows you to tweak their engagement by asking what they think might happen next, why a character behaves they way they do, and so on.

You can boost knowledge acquisition by talking about the work’s genre, for example, and how it connects to the era in which the writer lived. And, by identifying common themes between different books.

In addition, according to educator Jim Trelease, a child’s reading level doesn’t catch up to their listening capacity until about the eighth grade. As a result, reading aloud increases vocabulary.[4]

Not only do kids who are read to encounter more words than they otherwise would, they learn to recognize and pronounce them correctly. And, not surprisingly, studies show that having a large vocabulary helps students perform better in school.

In a world filled with fast-paced games and television shows, reading aloud to our children helps them develop an increased attention span. By virtue of the slower-paced medium, they learn to slow down, focus, and concentrate.

Needless to say, reading aloud to your children no matter their age, is in itself a bonding experience. But it also allows you to talk about difficult subject matter in a safe place, some of which (like bullying) they may be experiencing themselves.

Unfortunately, a lot of books with such important themes may have been banned. All the more reason to read them together at home. And today’s the perfect day to get started (or resume) reading aloud with your young ones.

#benefits of reading            #literacy

Endnotes:

[1] Kids & Family Reading Report. 7^th Edition. The Rise of Read-Aloud. Scholastic, 2019.

[2] Susan Engel and Catherine Snow. “Our kids aren’t good readers. Here’s the reason.” Washington Post Opinion. October 4, 2023. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/10/04/reading-comprehension-knowledge/

[3] Susan Engel and Catherine Snow. “Our kids aren’t good readers. Here’s the reason.” Washington Post Opinion. October 4, 2023. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/10/04/reading-comprehension-knowledge/

[4] McMahon, Regan. “10 Reasons You Should Read Aloud to Big Kids, Too.” January 30, 2020. Common Sense Media.
https://www.commonsensemedia.org/articles/10-reasons-you-should-read-aloud-to-big-kids-too

Image:

Reading Family:    From Freepik.com

FYI:

This Book is Banned participates in the Amazon.com affiliate program, where we earn a small commission by linking to books (but the price remains the same to you).  This allows us to remain free, and ad free. [Our privacy policy]

And I got to see that in person in Florida when I did that event there. When I did the whole book tour, I did feel like I was preaching to the choir. I wasn’t allowed to go to the school board meeting, and all the things I set up were banned book events. So, if you came, you probably weren’t a person who needs to be reached.

There were a lot of people who came up to me and said they agreed but were afraid to say something, that they’re on a school board, or work somewhere that makes speaking up a problem – or they’re just trying to avoid being labeled a pedophile. But by the end of the event, they’d say “I get it now. It’s gonna be difficult, but I’m going to say something.”

Be sure to see what the other authors in our Power of Books Series
have to say about the importance of books: 

Dr. Michael Datcher,
author of Harlem at Four

Jamie Jo Hoang,
author of My Father the Panda Killer

Edward Underhill,
author of Always the Almost,
and This Day Changes Everything

#banned books      #on censorship     #graphic novels        #book banning       #activism

Endnotes:

[1] Kim Hyun Sook, Ryan Estrada, illustrated by Ko Hyung-Ju. Banned Book Club. Chicago: Iron Circus Comics, 2020. Back cover.
[2] NCTAsia. https://www.nctasia.org/awards/year/2020/
[3] Minuteman Library Network. https://www.minlib.net/booklists/award-winners/eisner
[4] Alverson, Brigid. “’Banned Book Club’ Authors Speak Out After Their Work Is Temporarily Banned in Florida.” May 02, 2023. School Library Journal. https://www.slj.com/story/Banned-Book-Club-Authors-Speak-Out-After-Their-Work-is-Temporarily-Banned-in-Florida
[5] The text of Florida law HB 1467 may not explicitly impose felony penalties, but that doesn’t mean failure to comply can’t result in jail time. Having books in classroom libraries not approved by a “certified media specialist” leaves school librarians and teachers open to charges of a “felony of the third-degree” under Florida statute 847.012 (regarding Obscenity Crimes), which carries a penalty of “a term of imprisonment” for up to 5 years.

School districts are taking this seriously. Administrators have sent guidance to their teachers and staff to remove any unvetted books from classroom libraries until they could be approved, citing urgency based on the Obscenity statute mentioned above. https://www.snopes.com/news/2023/02/01/felony-charges-unapproved-books/ , https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2022/1467/BillText/er/PDF , http://www.leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=0800-0899/0847/Sections/0847.012.html

.
he Crucible is a notable example of how literature is like a layer cake. Arthur Miller’s account of why he came to write this play also touches upon how it is written, outlining the multi-layered nature of the work. Miller’s delineation of his play’s layers demonstrates why it’s important to get every bite of literary confections like The Crucible.

When The Crucible first opened on the Broadway stage in 1953, America was in the midst of what’s known as the Red Scare, a period of public hysteria about a perceived internal Communist threat.[1] The American psyche was fixated on the Congressional investigations being conducted by the House Un-American Activities Committee.[2]

The House Un-American Activities Committee targeted the Hollywood film industry, ushering in an era of blacklisting media workers. In order to promote their patriotic credentials, Hollywood studios implemented a blacklist. Scores of writers and media workers were banned from employment because of their perceived political leanings. And all it took was a rumored association with so-called “subversives” to ruin a career.[3]

In fact, Miller himself was called to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee (in 1956). And he was cited for contempt of Congress for refusing to point a proverbial finger in any other writers’ direction.[4]

Miller was motivated to write The Crucible in large part by what he describes as the “paralysis that had set in” among those who were unsettled by the committee’s violations of civil rights, but fearful of being identified as a covert Communists themselves if they protested too strongly.[5]

“In one sense,” Miller has stated, “The Crucible was an attempt to make life real again, palpable and structured.”[6] His hope was that the play “might illuminate the tragic absurdities” of what was going on in America during this period.[7]

The Crucible, as Miller characterizes it:

.
straddles two different worlds to make them one, but it is but it is not history in the usual sense of the word, but a moral, political and psychological construct that floats on the fluid emotions of both eras.[8]

He further notes that writing a play about the Salem witch trials probably wouldn’t have occurred to him if he hadn’t noticed “some astonishing correspondences with the calamity” of the period.[9]

While both historical moments involved the menace of concealed plots, the most startling thing for Miller were the similarities in their investigative routines, and “rituals of defense.”[10] Prosecutorial practices of the Salem witch trials were remarkably similar to those employed by the congressional committees.[11]

They were 300 years apart, yet both prosecutions charged membership of a clandestine, disloyal group. And, even if the accused confessed, their honesty could only be proven by naming others who were in league with them.[12]

Miller also noticed corresponding behaviors between members of the two communities. For example, avoiding old friends so as not to be seen associating with them, and zealous confirmations of loyalty. Not to mention a despairing pity for the accused mixed with an underlying sentiment that they “must have done something.”[13]

With this realization, Miller explains:

.
My basic need was to respond to a phenomenon which, with only small exaggeration, one could say paralyzed a whole generation and in a short time dried up the habits of trust and toleration in public discourse.[14]  

Miller was only certain a play about the Salem witch trials was possible, however, when a particular entry in the documents he was researching “jogged” the thousands of pieces of information he had found into place.[15]

It became apparent to him that Abigail Williams was fired from domestic service in the Proctor household because Elizabeth’s husband John had “bedded” the young woman. He saw the bad blood between the two women as being what prompted Abigail to accuse Elizabeth Proctor of witchcraft.

“All this I understood,” Miller points out, “I had not approached the witchcraft out of nowhere, or from purely social and political considerations.”[16]

His own marriage of twelve years was teetering, and he was painfully aware that the blame lay with him. He had “at last found something of [him]self in it.”[17]

So, Miller began to build the play around the character of John Proctor. That Proctor might overturn his personal guilt and emerge as the most forthright voice against the lunacy that had a grip on the community was a reassurance to Miller. For him, it demonstrated that a “clear moral outcry could still spring” from a tarnished soul like his own.[18]

Miller sought a title that would literally indicate the burning away of impurities, “which,” as he explicitly states, “is what the play is doing.”[19] And the term crucible… well, it crystalizes that concept in a single word.

As Miller states, he couldn’t have written The Crucible simply to write a play about blacklisting – or about Salem’s witch trials for that matter.  His play centers on “the guilt of John Proctor and the working out of that guilt,” exemplifying “the guilt of man in general.”[20] And there we have the fourth layer in our literary cake… universal themes.

Though many people still consider The Crucible to be a tract-like against McCarthyism, it’s more than a political metaphor. It’s also more than a simple morality tale. As Miller maintains:

.
On its most universal level, The Crucible is about community hysteria, fear of the unknown, the psychology of betrayal, the cast of mind that insists on absolute truth and resorts to fear and violence to assert it, and not least about the fortitude it takes to protect the innocent and resist unjust authority.”[21]

He draws a comparison between turning to Salem and looking in a petri dish. Three centuries before the cold-war, as Miller points out, Salem village displayed what he describes as a human “fatality forever awaiting the right conditions for its always unique, forever unprecedented outbreak of trust, alarm, suspicion.”[22]

And, he calls attention to the fact that this “fatality” isn’t about “just a crazy situation in a far-off place.”[23] Such events could (and often do) occur in a corporate boardroom, for example, or anywhere else unchecked power is prodigious. So, we can add ongoing relevance to the list of layers in our literary cake.

It’s important to remember that, as Miller makes abundantly clear, literary works like The Crucible function on multiple levels. As such, they aren’t intended to be read on a single level, whether that’s for plot and simple enjoyment, or the exploration of universal themes at the expense of historical and societal context.

Either of these common approaches flattens literary works, minimizing the diverse perspectives of unique identities, as well as the histories of various communities. Not to mention the fact that flattening a work hinders engaging it through the filter of current pressing civic issues.[24]

Where we arrive at what the reader “bring[s] to the party,” as Toni Morrison puts it.[25] This perspective also contributes to the layer count of our literary confection (which at this point is tall enough to resemble something out of Dr. Seuss.)

For example, educators have recently been teaching The Crucible with a view toward how mass hysteria, patriarchy, sexism, and scapegoating continue to operate today.

Some teachers use Miller’s play to initiate conversations about prison and bail reform. Still others employ The Crucible as a way to examine systems of privilege and power that marginalize people of color and other marginalized populations. [26]

When we examine all the layers within works like The Crucible, we begin to comprehend the real power of literature – to build understanding about the world we live in, to provoke questioning power structures that produce inequality, to foster empathy for those whose life circumstances are different than our own. And as a result, perhaps make our piece of the world a little better for everyone.[27] Which is why it’s so important to get every bite of these literary confections.

#the art of reading      #banned books      #witch trials     #published 1950s     #english literature   #Benefits of the Humanities

Endnotes:

[1] Navaskh, Victor. “The Demons of Salem, With Us Still.” Sept. 8, 1996. The New York Times.
https://www.nytimes.com/1996/09/08/movies/the-demons-of-salem-with-us-still.html

“Red Scare.” April 21, 2023. The History Channel  https://www.history.com/topics/cold-war/red-scare

“McCarthyism and the Red Scare.” University of Virginia Miller Center.  https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/educational-resources/age-of-eisenhower/mcarthyism-red-scare

[2] Miller, Arthur. “Why I Wrote ‘The Crucible.’” Oct. 13, 1996. The New Yorker.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1996/10/21/why-i-wrote-the-crucible

[3] Perlman, Allison. “Hollywood blacklist.”Sept. 22, 2023.  Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hollywood-blacklist

“A look back at the Hollywood blacklist.” July 8, 2018. BrandeisNOW. https://www.brandeis.edu/now/2018/june/blacklist-qa-tom-doherty.html

[4] “Excerpts from Arthur Miller’s testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee.” American Masters. April 2020. PBS. https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/excerpts-from-arthur-millers-testimony-before-the-house-un-american-activities-committee/14006/

[5] Miller, Arthur. “Why I Wrote ‘The Crucible.’” Oct. 13, 1996. The New Yorker.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1996/10/21/why-i-wrote-the-crucible

[6] Miller, Arthur. “Are You Now Or Were You Ever?” The  Guardian/The Observer (online), June 17, 2002. https://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/miller-mccarthyism.html

[7] Miller, Arthur. “Are You Now Or Were You Ever?” The  Guardian/The Observer (online), June 17, 2002. https://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/miller-mccarthyism.html

[8] Miller, Arthur. “Are You Now Or Were You Ever?” The  Guardian/The Observer (online), June 17, 2002. https://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/miller-mccarthyism.html

[9] Miller, Arthur. “Are You Now Or Were You Ever?” The  Guardian/The Observer (online), June 17, 2002. https://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/miller-mccarthyism.html

[10] Miller, Arthur. “Are You Now Or Were You Ever?” The  Guardian/The Observer (online), June 17, 2002. https://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/miller-mccarthyism.html

[11] Miller, Arthur. “Why I Wrote ‘The Crucible.’” Oct. 13, 1996. The New Yorker.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1996/10/21/why-i-wrote-the-crucible

[12] Miller, Arthur. “Are You Now Or Were You Ever?” The  Guardian/The Observer (online), June 17, 2002. https://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/miller-mccarthyism.html

[13] Miller, Arthur. “Why I Wrote ‘The Crucible.’” Oct. 13, 1996. The New Yorker.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1996/10/21/why-i-wrote-the-crucible

[14] Miller, Arthur. “Are You Now Or Were You Ever?” The  Guardian/The Observer (online), June 17, 2002. https://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/miller-mccarthyism.html

[15] Miller, Arthur. “Why I Wrote ‘The Crucible.’” Oct. 13, 1996. The New Yorker.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1996/10/21/why-i-wrote-the-crucible

[16] Miller, Arthur. “Why I Wrote ‘The Crucible.’” Oct. 13, 1996. The New Yorker.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1996/10/21/why-i-wrote-the-crucible

[17] Miller, Arthur. “Why I Wrote ‘The Crucible.’” Oct. 13, 1996. The New Yorker.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1996/10/21/why-i-wrote-the-crucible

[18] Miller, Arthur. “Why I Wrote ‘The Crucible.’” Oct. 13, 1996. The New Yorker.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1996/10/21/why-i-wrote-the-crucible

[19] Mel Gussow and Arthur Miller. Conversations with Miller. New York: Applause Theatre & Cinema Books, 2002. Pg 185.

[20] Mel Gussow and Arthur Miller. Conversations with Miller. New York: Applause Theatre & Cinema Books, 2002. Pg 7.

[21] Navaskh, Victor. “The Demons of Salem, With Us Still.” Sept. 8, 1996. The New York Times.
https://www.nytimes.com/1996/09/08/movies/the-demons-of-salem-with-us-still.html

[22] Miller, Arthur. “Are You Now Or Were You Ever?” The  Guardian/The Observer (online), June 17, 2002. https://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/miller-mccarthyism.html

[23] Mel Gussow and Arthur Miller. Conversations with Miller. New York: Applause Theatre & Cinema Books, 2002.Pg 37.

[24] Mirra, Nicole. Reading, Writing, & Raising Voices: The Centrality of Literacy to Civic Education. 2022. NCTE: National Council of Teachers of English. Pg 5.

[25] Morrison, Toni. “The Reader as Artist.” O, the Oprah Magazine. Vol. 7, Issue 7. (July 2006), 174.

[26] Torres, Julia E. “Chat: Disrupting The Crucible.” June 12k 2018. DisruptTexts
https://disrupttexts.org/2018/06/12/disrupting-the-crucible/

[27] Ebarvia, Tricia. Disrupting Texts as a Restorative Practice.
https://triciaebarvia.org/2018/07/11/disrupting-texts-as-a-restorative-practice/#:~:text=%23DisruptTexts%20is%20a%20type%20of,choices%20we%20make%20as%20educators

Images:

First Edition Cover with “banned” lock.

The Environment of the Day: Senate Hearings http://www.senate.gov 

Reference to American History: Cauldron-Photo by Matt Benson on Unsplash

The Personal Level: Broken pocket watch-Photo by Gaspar Uhas on Unsplash

Symbolism of the Title: A crucible https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crucible 

Ongoing Relevance: Fanned Book-Photo by Anastasia Zhenina on Unsplash

Beyond Themes of Paranoia: Silhouette and bird-Photo by Hasan Almasi on Unsplash

orty-two percent of all books that are banned contain topics pertaining to health and wellbeing for students, like bullying, and the substance abuse and suicide it can lead to.[1]

Yes, depictions of human cruelty can be intense, but we can’t afford to be silent on the subject. Banning books with bullying themes is doing more harm than good. Because, banning these books eliminates one of the best tools for addressing the behavior.

A recent survey of public-school superintendents indicates that over 75% express concern over one form of bullying or another.[2] The concern is understandable.

One in five high school students report being bullied at school in the last year. But it doesn’t just happen among high school students. Reports of bullying are highest in middle schools, and yes, bullying takes place in primary schools too.

Bullying can, of course, result in physical injuries of varying severity. But whether it takes the form of physical, emotional, social, or online bullying, the psychological effects are far-reaching and significantly more concerning. Bullying of any kind can not only lead to social and emotional distress, but also self-harm, and even death.

Being bullied can increase the risk of depression, sleep difficulties, anxiety, lower academic achievement, and dropping out of school.

Though we typically associate such concerns with students who are being bullied, youth who bully others are at increased risk for academic problems, substance abuse, and experiencing violence later in their adolescence and adulthood.[3]

School-based programs are being implemented to deal with bullying. Sometimes referred to as social-emotional learning, these programs are designed to enhance emotional and interpersonal skills. This includes empathy, emotional awareness and regulation, communication and problem-solving, as well as conflict management and teamwork.

This approach also seeks to change the way youth think about and engage with violence, by providing information about the psychological repercussions for all parties involved.[4]

Not surprisingly, books are an excellent resource for teaching these social and emotional skills. Needless to say, literature is chockfull of emotions as characters experience the ups and downs of their often-dramatic lives. When students examine the emotions of the characters they’re reading about, they not only gain a greater understanding of the text, but also their own feelings… not to mention those of their classmates.[5]

Yes, sometimes the emotions we feel when reading about bullying and its associated mental health issues can be difficult. But empathy, emotional awareness, and interpersonal skills can’t be developed without engaging such emotions. Social growth doesn’t happen in a vacuum.

So it’s disappointing, and more than a little disconcerting, when books containing themes of bullying are banned. Because these books happen to be the best ones for opening dialogue about bullying. So when they’re banned, one of the best tools for addressing bullying behavior has been eliminated, leaving students vulnerable to its damaging psychological effects.

For all you educators, here’s something from McGraw Hill
regarding literature as a tool to address bullying.

And check out this discussion guide to get you started.

#banned books    #benefits of humanities    #bullying

Endnotes:

[1] “Book Bans in Public Schools” PEN America.

[2] 2023 Voice of the Superintendent. EAB (Formerly Education Advisory Board). Pg 12.

[3] Preventing Bullying. 2018. CDC.gov. https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/bullying-factsheet508.pdf

[4] A Comprehensive Technical Package for the Prevention of Youth Violence and Associated Risk Behaviors. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2016. Pg 21.

[5] “Developing Social-Emotional Skills Through Literature.” Thoughtful Learning. https://k12.thoughtfullearning.com/blogpost/developing-social-emotional-skills-through-literature

[6]“Why you should read these 51 banned books now.”
https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/books/2023/09/29/banned-books-read-these-books-now-and-why-in-defense-of-books/71008499007/

[7] “Don’t Ban Books Like Eleanor and Park, Teens Need Them.” Book Riot.
https://bookriot.com/dont-ban-books-like-eleanor-park-teens-need/

[8] “Banned Books 2018 – Gutless.” https://www.marshall.edu/library/bannedbooks/gutless/

[9] “Why you should read these 51 banned books now.”
https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/books/2023/09/29/banned-books-read-these-books-now-and-why-in-defense-of-books/71008499007/

[10] Martin, Jennifer. “the 50 Most Banned Books in America.”  https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/the-50-most-banned-books-in-america/45/

.
hat can you do about book banning? More than you may realize. Take at least one action each day to help in the fight against censorship. Peruse the suggestions on the let’s do something about it! list below. Then incorporate these efforts into your day… not just for Banned Book Week, but all year long.

The American Library Association has recorded 695 demands to censor library books and resources between January 1 and August 31, 2023. That’s a 20% increase over the same period in 2022, which saw the most attempted book bans since ALA began compiling data about censorship in libraries more than 20 years ago.

These attempted bans include 1,915 unique titles. So, be sure to check books that’ve been challenged out of the library… doing so documents that these works are beneficial to the community. Begin with one of the top 13 most challenged books in 2022. They’re also listed below.[1]

#banned books     #celebrations

Endnotes:

[1] “Book Ban Data.” American Library Association.  https://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/book-ban-data

nne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl is a classic work of Holocaust literature. But it’s also the coming or age story of a young girl, albeit in extraordinary circumstances. This aspect of this book is often forgotten, despite the statement on the original cover describing it as  an extraordinary document of adolescence.

While the term “diary” suggests raw, unedited writing, Diary of a Young Girl is an amalgamation of literary processes. And, it’s been translated into more than 70 languages, to become one of the most read books in the world.[1]

Anne Frank requested a diary for her thirteenth birthday. And it was one of the first things she packed when her family went into hiding two weeks later, on July 6, 1942.[2] Most people assume this single diary is all that exists of Anne’s writings, but it isn’t. She also wrote in notebooks she’d receive from her sister Margot and those helping to hide the family.  And these writings are included in what became the book Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl.

But that isn’t the only version of Anne Frank’s diary that has been published. Anne hoped to one day become a journalist, or famous writer.[3] And she was inspired to publish a book after the war about her time in the Secret Annex by an address on the radio from Gerrit Bolkestein, Education, Cultural Affairs and Science Minister of the Dutch government, in exile in London.

Bolkestein urged the Dutch people to collect “vast quantities of simple, everyday material…[4]

.
History cannot be written on the basis of official decisions and documents alone.[5]

If future generations are to realize to the full extent what we as a population are going through and what we are experiencing in this time of war, then it is clear that we will need simple documents: a diary, letters from a laborer forced to go to work in Germany, […] sermons spoken by a clergyman...[6]

Only with such writings could the “picture of Holland’s struggle for freedom be painted in its full depth and full glory.”[7]

Anne already had her title: Het Achterhuis, or The Secret Annex. She revised a large part of her diary, describing the period from June 12, 1942 to March 29, 1944. But the second draft of her revise omitted a couple of things. She eliminated notes about her crush on Peter van Pels, son of the family who shared their hiding place. And, she deleted irascible remarks about her mother, those typical of a thirteen-year-old.[8]

Anne’s father, Otto Frank, was the driving force behind the publication of her diary, which was first published in book form as Het Achterhuis on June 25, 1947.[9] He didn’t simply publish Anne’s revised version, however. Otto reinserted some of the passages from Anne’s original diary texts that she omitted in her rewrite. He also included some of Anne’s short stories. Otto also corrected the language errors in young Anne’s writing.[10]

After Het Achterhuis’ success in the Netherlands, Otto looked for publishing opportunities in other countries.  In 1950, a French edition was published, followed by one in German. And in 1952, two English versions were published under the title Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, one for Great Britain and the other for the U.S. which included an introduction by Eleanor Roosevelt.[11]

Otto Frank willed the original documents to the Netherlands State Institute for War Documentation.[12] And in 1986, the Institute produced a “Critical Edition” of the “Diary.” Intended for academic research, this edition draws a meticulously detailed comparison between Anne’s original diary texts, her rewritten version, and Otto’s rendition. It also includes exhaustive scientific examinations of the original documents confirming that this is indeed the work of a girl named Anne Frank.[13]

In 1995, The Definitive Edition was published in English. This edition contains 30% more material than the original edition, including much of the previously omitted sexual content. The additional material includes passages revolving around menstruation and sexual organs, as well as mentions of contraception. Not surprisingly, this version is the one most often banned and challenged.[14]

Most notable challenges include one in 2010, when a parent in the Culpepper County Public School district in Virginia complained that the book contained “explicit material and homosexual themes.”[15] The school district ultimately kept this edition of the book in its library. But, the curriculum was changed to use an earlier version of the work.

And in 2013, a formal complaint was filed by a Michigan parent, calling the book “pornographic.” They also characterized it as “too explicit for middle-schoolers,” clearly losing sight of the fact that it was written by a middle-school-aged author.[16] In fact, the cover of the original edition describes the book as “an extraordinary document of adolescence.” Unfortunately, many parents have forgotten what concepts, issues, and questions they were working through when they were thirteen.
.

Technically speaking this doesn’t qualify as a new edition, but in 2018 researchers announced they uncovered the text beneath two pages of the diary Anne had pasted over with brown paper.[17] Due to advances in image processing technology, The Anne Frank House, together with the Huygens Institute for the History of the Netherlands, as well as the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, were able to decipher the text on the hidden pages.[18

The content of the text, bawdy jokes and Anne’s version of material that approximates the sex education of the day, isn’t significant in itself. She explores such topics in other parts of the diary – very often in more explicit terms than they’re addressed here. As Peter de Bruijn, a senior researcher at the Huygens Institute for the History of the Netherlands maintains, they’re important because they indicate Frank’s first foray into writing in a more literary tone.[19]

Finally, there’s Anne Frank’s Diary the Graphic Adaptation, published in 2018. As the title explicitly states, this book is not a new edition, but an adaptation. That said, this telling of Anne Frank’s story is faithful to the Definitive Edition, and has been authorized by the Anne Frank Foundation in Basel.[20]

Anne Frank’s Diary the Graphic Adaptation has been making headlines lately for being yanked from school curriculums, most recently in Florida and Texas. Why was this version of Anne Frank’s diary banned? Like challenges revolving around The Definitive Edition, it’s been challenged for sexual content, and labeled “pornography.”[21]

The Anne Frank House even felt compelled to issue a statement on the recent firing of a schoolteacher in Texas for reading a passage in class. Understandably, it’s pointed out that this turn of events is not about Anne Frank’s diary itself, but an illustrated adaptation of her diary. Be that as it may, the Anne Frank House’s response is right on target:

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According to the school, the passages about Anne Frank’s development from girlhood to womanhood and her curiosity about her sexuality are offensive. 

As a 13-year-old girl, Anne Frank had to go into hiding from the Nazis. For two years she wrote in her diary about her life, feelings and thoughts from her hiding place, the Secret Annex, against the background of the persecution of the Jews. She also wrote about her development as a woman and her ambition to become a writer. She did this in a frank manner. Anne Frank’s diary appeals to people worldwide.

Graphic biographies or novels are very suitable for reaching young people. Banning books, in this case the graphic adaptation of Anne Frank’s diary, because of certain passages is a missed opportunity to introduce young people to Anne Frank’s life story and the history of the Holocaust.[22]

On one level, Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl is nothing less than an iconic piece of Holocaust literature. On the other hand, it’s the story of a thirteen-year-old girl coming of age, albeit in extraordinary circumstances.

This combination of historical significance, and insight into the personal development of a young girl into womanhood makes this work doubly relevant. Because as Minister Bolkestein astutely pointed out, history is about more than official decisions and documents. It’s about people, and what they were experiencing during the period in question. If we’re going to truly understand it… that is.

#Banned Books     #Holocaust       #Celebrations     #published 1950s         #graphic novels

Endnotes:

[1] “The Diary.” Anne Frank.org  https://www.annefrank.org/en/anne-frank/diary/

[2] Müller, Melissa. Anne Frank: the biography. London: Bloomsbury, 2013. Pg 190.

[3 The Diary.” Anne Frank.org. https://www.annefrank.org/en/anne-frank/diary/

[4 Pampl, Patricia. “The Whole Anne Frank. March 5, 1995. The New York Times. https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/10/26/reviews/frank-definitive.html?mabReward=relbias&module=Search

[5] Pampl, Patricia. “The Whole Anne Frank. March 5, 1995. The New York Times. https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/10/26/reviews/frank-definitive.html?mabReward=relbias&module=Search

[6] War Diaries > Historical background. The Memory  https://geheugen.delpher.nl/en/geheugen/pages/collectie/Oorlogsdagboeken/Historische+achtergrond

[7] Müller, Melissa. Anne Frank: the biography. London: Bloomsbury, 2013. Pg 226.

[8] “The Diary.” Anne Frank House.org. https://www.annefrank.org/en/anne-frank/diary/

[9] “The Diary.” Anne Frank.org. https://www.annefrank.org/en/anne-frank/diary/initial-reactions-secret-annex/

Noonan, John. “On This Day: Anne Frank’s Diary Published.” Finding Dulcinea. https://www.findingdulcinea.com/on-this-day-anne-franks-diary-published/

[10] “The Complete Works of Anne Frank.” Anne Frank House.org  https://www.annefrank.org/en/anne-frank/diary/complete-works-anne-frank/

[11] “The Publication of the Diary.” Anne Frank.org  https://www.annefrank.org/en/anne-frank/diary/publication-diary/

Tikkanen, Amy. “The Diary of a Young Girl.” Britannica.com  https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Diary-of-a-Young-Girl

[12]   Lee, Carol Ann. The Biography of Anne Frank –  Roses From the Earth. London: Viking, 2000.     Pg 233.

[13] Pampl, Patricia. “The Whole Anne Frank. March 5, 1995. The New York Times. https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/10/26/reviews/frank-definitive.html?mabReward=relbias&module=Search

[14] Culker, Emily. “Happy Birthday, Anne Frank.” Intellectual Freedom Blog. June 12, 2022. https://www.oif.ala.org/happy-birthday-anne-frank-2/

[15] Chandler, Michael Alison. “School system in Virginia won’t teacher version of Anne Frank book.” January 29, 2010. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/28/AR2010012804001.html?nav%3Dhcmodule

[16] Culker, Emily. “Happy Birthday, Anne Frank.” Intellectual Freedom Blog. June 12, 2022. https://www.oif.ala.org/happy-birthday-anne-frank-2/

[17] Siegal, Nina. “Researchers Uncover Two Hidden Pages in Anne Frank’s Diary.” May 15, 2018. The New York Times.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/15/books/anne-frank-diary-new-pages.html

[18] “New texts from diary of Anne Frank revealed.” The Anne Frank House. https://www.annefrank.org/en/about-us/news-and-press/news/2018/5/15/new-texts-diary-anne-frank-revealed/

[19] Siegal, Nina. “Researchers Uncover Two Hidden Pages in Anne Frank’s Diary.” May 15, 2018. The New York Times.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/15/books/anne-frank-diary-new-pages.html

[20] The Jewish Museum Shop. https://shop.thejewishmuseum.org/anne-frank-s-diary

[21] Lapin, Andrew. “A new version of the famous Holocaust diary is being called ‘Anne Frank pornography’ and getting banned from schools.” June 23, 2023.  Heritage Florida Jewish News. https://www.heritagefl.com/story/2023/06/23/news/a-new-version-of-the-famous-holocaust-diary-is-being-called-anne-frank-pornography-and-getting-banned-from-schools/18397.html

Bella, Timothy. “Texas teacher fired after assigning graphic novel based on Anne Frank’s diary.” September 21, 2023. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/09/20/texas-teacher-anne-frank-fired/

[22] “Statement: banning of Anne Frank graphic adaption in Texas.” The Anne Frank House. https://www.annefrank.org/en/about-us/news-and-press/news/2023/9/21/banning-anne-frank-graphic-adaption-texas/

Images:

Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl. Cover of first English edition. Doubleday & Company Inc published the First Edition, First Printing in Garden City, New York, 1952.

Het Achterhuis (The Secret Annex) – Front cover. First edition, 1947.

Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl. The Definitive Edition. Cover. New York: Bantam, 1997.

Anne Frank’s red checked diary. The Anne Frank House. A_AFrank_I_039
https://www.annefrank.org/en/museum/anne-frank-collection/35/red-checked-diary/

Anne Frank’s Diary the Graphic Adaptation. Cover. New York: Pantheon Books, 2018

FYI:

hy was The House on Mango Street banned? Most significantly, Cisneros’ work was among a number of books involved in a censorship suit revolving around a 2010 Arizona law specifically designed to ban a Mexican American studies program being taught in the Tucson Unified School District. For details about the movement sparked by this turn of events, take a look at Book Bans: a case study in how to push back.

These days book banners have broadened their scope to overwhelmingly target the entire BIPOC community: black, indigenous, people of color. (As well as LGBTQ+ individuals, but that’s another post – check it out here.)[1] The reason typically cited for this diversity-squashing move is concern for the social issues presented in these books.

This state of affairs is nothing less than tragic. When we are blind to the issues communities are grappling with, and denied the opportunity to explore diverse ideas, the potential for understanding and engagement within our communities goes out the window. On this note, Sandra Cisneros outlines what she sees as her responsibility as an author:

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I have suspected for a long time now that our job as Chicanos, as Mexico-americanos, as amphibians, as citizens with one foot over there and one over here, is to be the bridge of unity…[2]

During her studies at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Cisneros became aware that the language of working-class Mexican Americans was “nowhere to be found” in American literature.[3] She came to realize that her community had never been portrayed “with love and honesty.”[4] That’s when she found her voice and set out to do just that, and in doing so establish that bridge of unity:

.
[In my work,] I hope that people see their story being written about, and it gives them new options and possibilities to imagine something outside of what television or what the school counselor could imagine for them. I get lots of letters from all kinds of people. There are some people most unlike me, maybe a white male, who’s riding the subway and said he read my book and it made him look at people on the subway across from him in a different way, in a more human way. I really hope it will humanize [us] to be more compassionate, to recognize ourselves. If you can recognize yourself in the person most unlike you in literature, then the book will have done its work.[5]

It would be easy to see The House on Mango Street as a memoir disguised as a novel, but Cisneros’ work isn’t her story alone. After graduating from the University of Iowa, she worked as a teacher, and as a counselor to high-school dropouts. The vignettes that comprise Mango Street incorporate characters based on the lives of her students. And, it’s these women Cisneros refers to in the book’s simple dedication “To the Women.” [6] So, Mango Street is indeed the portrayal of a community rather than one individual’s experience.

The House on Mango Street most certainly accomplishes Cisneros’ mission…  to promote understanding and compassion between people with differing backgrounds and cultures. Which, in turn, opens the proverbial door to engagement within our communities.

The house symbolism at the heart of The House on Mango Street functions on several levels. Most broadly, Cisneros’ work is often described as a bildungsroman, a formative novel about the psychological and moral growth of a protagonist. As you might have guessed, this literary genre originated in Germany. In the German language, bildung means education, and roman means novel. Therefore, a bildungsroman is a novel of education or formation.[7]

What does this have to do with houses? The house is a common symbol for the psyche, which according to Carl Jung, represents one’s current “state of consciousness, with hitherto unconscious additions.”[8] In other words, a place you presently inhabit that has room(s) for growth. And it’s interesting to note that Esperanza writes about her house before she tells the reader about her name.

As Cisneros indicates, her protagonist Esperanza is “in that nebulous age between childhood and adulthood,” developing into an adult by fits and starts.[9] And, Mango Street does indeed function on a pattern of growth where a young person encounters the outside world, examines it in relationship to themselves, and forges an identity that incorporates those experiences. Symbolically speaking, those experiences are the contents filling a new room in their psyche.

Cisneros’ narrative explores the cultural forces that shape identity. Her adaptation of the bildungsroman charts Esperanza’s developing sexual and social consciousness as she grows up in her Mexican father’s house, located in the Humboldt Park neighborhood of Chicago.[10]

In an early section of Mango Street called “My Name,” Esperanza says she’d like to baptize herself under a new name – ZeeZee the X. As observed by English professor Martha Satz, this name suggests a variable to be expressed, indicating an identity to be shaped. And by the end of the work, we learn what that variable is – Cisneros’ protagonist is a Chicana writer, one who has rejected the traditional Chicano definition of a woman’s role and status.[11]

House imagery is also linked to the American Dream, in that home ownership has long been considered one of its core components. Owning a home has clear economic advantages, such as tax benefits, accumulating wealth by accessing credit, and building equity.

For immigrants, ties to the American Dream can run even deeper, when owning a house is about putting down roots, establishing a home. And it’s often associated with regaining the self-identity that was lost when they left their homes behind to emigrate to the U.S.[12]

Cisneros invokes this tie to the American Dream in Mango Street’s opening pages. Esperanza’s parents frequently tell their children that one day they would have a house that would be theirs “for always so [they] wouldn’t have to move each year.”[13]

And the house they imagined would also signify success in their new country.  Their house would have stairs “like the houses on T.V.”  It would be “white with trees around it,” and have “a great big yard.”[14] In other words, it would be just like the houses the families portrayed in television shows like Leave it to Beaver, Father Knows Best, and The Brady Bunch live in. This is the house Esperanza’s mother dreamed of in the stories she told her children before they went to bed, one that represents both home and American success.

The house on Mango Street didn’t compare with the T.V. houses by any stretch of the imagination. For starters, it was in an impoverished neighborhood. And, unlike the houses on television, it was small and red. There was no front yard, its windows were tiny, bricks were crumbling in places, and the front door would swell to the point of being difficult to open.

Cisneros has described the house that inspired the one on Mango Street as a prison, one that was grounded in class discrimination, doing damage to her self-identity.

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I used to be ashamed to take anyone into that room, to my house, because if they saw that house they would equate the house with me and my value. And I know that house didn’t define me; they just saw the outside. They couldn’t see what was inside.[15]

Cisneros’ treatment of this state of mind appears in an exchange between Esperanza and a nun who teaches at her school – one that occurs after school hours as Esperanza was playing in front of where her family lives. The nun’s reaction to seeing where Esperanza lives is “You live there?”

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The way she said it made me feel like nothing. There. I lived there. I nodded. [16]

In that moment, Esperanza knew she had to have a house she could point to without feeling judged and ashamed – and the house on Mango Street isn’t it. Though Esperanza’s parents insist the situation is temporary, this house still feels like the prison Cisneros described… being seen as of lesser value simply because of where she lived.

Esperanza also expresses a wish for a house of her own. Not a “home in the heart” like Elenita the bruja, “witch woman,” foretells for her, but a house.[17] And when Esperanza owns her own house:

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I won’t forget who I am or where I came from. Passing bums will ask, Can I come in? I’ll offer them the attic, ask them to stay, because I know how it is to be without a house.[18]

For Esperanza, a house of her own not only means she has overcome the poverty she grew up around, but also the patriarchal Mexican culture she pushes back against – a culture that considers “becom[ing] someone’s wife” as the only destiny for a daughter. [19]

For the women in several of Mango Street’s vignettes, the houses they live in become prisons, because their possessive fathers and/or husbands confine them there.

What Esperanza strives for is:

.
Not a flat. Not an apartment in back. Not a man’s house. Not a daddy’s. A house all my own. With my porch and my pillow, my pretty purple petunias. My books and my stories. My two shoes waiting beside the bed. Nobody to shake a stick at. Nobody’s garbage to pick up after.

Only a house quiet as snow, a space for myself to go, clean as paper before the poem.[20]

Unlike the house on Mango Street, Esperanza’s house clearly represents the freedom to cultivate a healthy self-identity, one not diminished by poverty, or tethered to a husband or father.

As mentioned above, Sandra Cisneros set out to fill a literary gap by portraying her community with love and honesty. And, the very structure of her narrative reflects an essential experience among Mexican families, both in Mexico as well as immigrant Mexican families in the U.S. – the oral tradition of storytelling.[21]

Cisneros specifies that “it wasn’t a naïve thing, it wasn’t an accident”:

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I wanted to write a series of stories that you could open up at any point. You didn’t have to know before or after and you would understand each story like a little pearl, or you could look at the whole thing like a necklace. That’s what I always knew from the day that I wrote the first one… I didn’t know the order they were going to come in, but I wasn’t trying to write a linear novel.[22]

The House on Mango Street has 44 “chapters,” if you will. And each vignette relates a particular story, one that not only stands on its own but is chockful of cultural information. When taken as a whole, this collection of anecdotes paints a cultural picture as rich as any family history handed down by grandma.

Even as a graduate student at the University of Iowa, Cisneros was interested in voices and loved listening to people, noting that she’s more concerned with the how than the what of what they have to say.  In fact, she considers her deep appreciation for the rhythm of the spoken word to be her “original love.”[23]

As Latino author Isaac Mizrahi points out, Latin-American cultures have a meandering, inverted pyramid communication style. That is, giving context and supplying all the relevant facts of the story before ultimately making your point. This is the opposite of most Anglo cultures, which tend to stress leading with the main idea, then “fleshing it out” with details.[24]

The tales in Mango Street’s vignettes are related in just such a meandering manner. Take Cathy Queen of Cats, for example. Esperanza tells us all about Cathy… where she lives, who she lives next door to, that two girls, Benny and Blanca who are raggedy as rats, live across the street. We hear how Edna’s brother cheated her out the family’s building. We hear about everyone on Cathy’s block. Then we hear about Cathy’s cats. And finally, Esperanza makes her point and tells us that Cathy’s family will “just have to move a little farther north from Mango Street, a little farther away every time people like us keep moving in.”[25]

We see the same pattern in the Meme Ortiz segment. Esperanza tells us all about Meme’s dog, its breed, how big it is, the color of its eyes, and even how it runs. Then, we hear about the house Meme moves into… that Cathy’s father built it, that the stairs are crooked, that the yard is mostly dirt. And, Esperanza informs us that balls get stuck in the neighborhood’s gutters. Only in the last two lines do we hear about the titular character, that he won the friends’ First Annual Tarzan Jumping Contest… but broke both arms doing it.[26]

In The First Job, Esperanza relates how she was going to start looking for a job “the week after next.” She tells us how when she came home that afternoon, she was all wet because Tito pushed her into the open water hydrant. We find out that her mother called Esperanza into the kitchen before she even had a chance to go and change, and that her Aunt Layla was sitting in the kitchen drinking coffee with a spoon.

Then, we hear every little detail about how and why she gets this job, and what the job entails. But once again, Esperanza only reveals the unsettling point of the story in the last couple of lines. An older man who she assumes also works there manipulates her into giving him “a birthday kiss.” But, just as she was about to peck him on the cheek, “he grabs my face with both hands and kisses me hard on the mouth and doesn’t let go.”[27]

Cisneros’ meandering style walks us, leisurely and blithely, right up to the powerful point she makes in each vignette. And this rhythm makes the experiences she ultimately relates about her community all the more potent.

She may use very little Spanish in Mango Street, but it’s what gives Cisneros’ English what she describes as “its peculiar flavour.”[28] “The sensibility,” as Cisneros points out, “the diminutives” of the very tender, “that’s Spanish.”[29]

We see this linguistic marker sprinkled throughout Mango Street. For example, while cloud gazing one day, Esperanza’s sister Nenny gives names to the smaller clouds in the formation they’re admiring, calling them “little Joey, Marco, Nereida and Sue.”[30]

The older children in the wild and troublesome Vargas family are simply called by their given names. But in her tale of how he chipped his tooth on a parking meter, Esperanza refers to the youngest Vargas as “little Efren.”[31]

Diminutive language also appears in the vignette about Sire (who papa says is a punk and Mama says she shouldn’t talk to) and his infantilized girlfriend Lois (who is “tiny and pretty and smells like baby’s skin”). Esperanza notices Lois’ bare feet as they stand next to each other in Mr. Benny’s grocery, and compares her “barefoot baby toenails” to “little” pink seashells.[32] In this case, the diminutive’s linguistic association with the “little” pink seashells of Lois’ toenails serves to underscores her infantilized nature.

Cisneros notes that “looking at inanimate objects as if they were animate” also reflects the Spanish language.[33] And, Mango Street is peppered with this delightful linguistic device.  For instance, “our house with its feet tucked under like a cat.”[34] As well as “the shoes talk back to you with every step.”[35] Then there’s “the little wooden door that has wedged shut the dark for long opens with a sigh and lets out a breath of mold and dampness.”[36]

The peculiar flavor of Cisneros’ English not only gives her work a captivating, easy to read rhythm, it gives us insight into the Mexica-American culture Mango Street portrays.

The House on Mango Street opens with Esperanza revealing that she has the same name as her great-grandmother. While Mango Street makes it clear that Esperanza is proud of her Mexican heritage, like a lot of young people straddling two cultures, she rebels against some of its traditions. In Esperanza’s case, those having to do with the patriarchal aspects of the culture that Cisneros mentions on the opening page.

Esperanza tells how boys and girls “live in separate worlds. The boys in their universe and we in ours.”[37] Her brothers, for example, have plenty to say to Esperanza and her sister inside the house. But when they’re outside “they can’t be seen talking to girls.”[38]

We learn pretty quick that Esperanza is a spunky girl who has plans for her life. She may share a name with her great-grandmother, but she has no intention of being subdued like this once “wild horse of a woman” had been, who like so many other women ended up looking out the window their whole lives,” “sit[ting] their sadness on an elbow.”[39]

Several of Cisneros’ vignettes revolve around women who find themselves in similar circumstances. There’s Alicia, whose father insists she forego her studies at the university. Because, her mother has died, and as a woman, it is now Alicia’s place to fulfill the never-ending task of taking care of the family.[40]

Rafaela wishes she had hair like Rapunzel, the fairy tale character who is locked in a tower. Rafaela’s husband plays dominoes on Tuesday nights. And he locks her indoors like Rapunzel while he’s away. Rafaela spends her time wishing she could follow the music from the dance hall down the street, to “go there and dance before she gets old.” [41]

And there’s Sally, who’s not much older than Esperanza but is already married. Sally grew up with a father who says “to be beautiful is trouble,” and beat her because he was afraid she was going to run away and shame the family like his sisters did.[42] Sally claims she’s in love, but Esperanza thinks she married early to escape her father.

Sally says she likes being married because she can buy her own things when her husband gives her money. But, he doesn’t like her friends so they aren’t allowed to visit. He won’t let her talk on the phone either. And, she sits at home because she’s afraid to leave the house without his permission.[43]

Esperanza is different from most of the women she tells us about. They’ve done what Esperanza has decided she will not do – grow up “tame” and lay her “neck on the threshold waiting for the ball and chain.”[44] She is “Simple. Sure. [She is] one who leaves the table like a man, without putting back the chair or picking up the plate.”[45]

In her essay, Notes of a Native Daughter, Cisnero cites a quote from a Chicagoan, one retold by writer Studs Terkel, “I always feel a chest-welling when I drive along the lake… Yet I know four blocks over is desperation.”[46]

That’s the kind of neighborhood Esperanza is growing up in. And her honest portrayal of those struggling to make a good life in this poverty-stricken environment is one of the social issues challengers of The House on Mango Street find objectionable.

Cisnero further notes that “Chicago’s Magnificent Mile made others feel magnificent but only made [her] ashamed of my shoes.”[47] Instances of Esperanza being ashamed of her shoes pop up periodically in Mango Street.

Given Cisneros’ remark, this suggests something other than a young girl wishing her mother had chosen a more fashionable style of footwear when buying clothes for her daughter. Esperanza’s embarrassment about her shoes clearly alludes to Cisneros’ reaction to the obvious disparity between downtown Chicago and her own neighborhood.

In Esperanza’s neighborhood, basic services are already sparce and diminishing even further. Trash pick-up, for example, was halved in Cisneros’ own neighborhood from twice a week to once, even though the population (and therefore trash) had doubled. This experience undoubtedly informs the observation Esperanza makes about how the people who live in houses like “the ones with gardens” where her Papa works “have nothing to do with last week’s garbage,” or fear of the rats that come with it.[48]

The vignette Geraldo No Last Name shows us a severely understaffed hospital, and the repercussions of such a situation.  When a young man named Geraldo is the victim of a hit and run accident, there’s “nobody but an intern working all alone” in the emergency room.[49]

If there had been a surgeon, or if one had even shown up, maybe Geraldo wouldn’t have died. But there wasn’t a surgeon, or a fully trained doctor of any kind. So Geraldo bleeds to death, more the victim of inequitable resources than the hit and run driver who sent him to the hospital.

We’ve already touched upon the housing conditions in Esperanza’s neighborhood. The residents live in crumbling houses, or are jammed together in run-down flats with broken water pipes the landlord refuses to fix. And even those aren’t affordable. Family members, like grandpa in The Family of Little Feet, must sleep on the living room couch for lack of adequate space.[50]

Though it isn’t mentioned explicitly, the careful reader can see that food insecurity is also an issue. Rosa Vargas’ husband abandoned her, “without even leaving a dollar for bologna” to feed the large family he left behind.[51]

Minerva and her children are also food insecure. We learn that Minerva is always sad and has many troubles. In this vignette Esperanza describes Minerva’s nightly routine. So, the refence to feeding her children “their pancake dinner” indicates this isn’t a breakfast-for-dinner event for the fun of it. Rather, it’s the routine. Minerva’s kids have pancakes for dinner because that’s all she can afford.

And, when Esperanza talks her mother into letting her eat lunch at school, she takes “a rice sandwich because we don’t have lunch meat.”[52] The fact that this vignette is titled A Rice Sandwich tells the reader it’s more about what she has for lunch than it is about where she eats it. Especially since, in keeping with her meandering style, Cisneros caps the vignette with a description of the unpleasant sandwich Esperanza eats in the school canteen.

Esperanza doesn’t tell her family that the reason she doesn’t want to go on their Sunday drives through neighborhoods that have houses with gardens is because she’s ashamed. But she is – “all of us staring out the window like the hungry. I am tired of looking at what we can’t have.”[53] And as Esperanza’s mother wisely points out in the vignette A Smart Cookie, “Shame is a bad thing, you know. It keeps you down.”[54]

Poverty is an uncomfortable topic, to be sure. But banning books that address it does a disservice to every citizen of this country. It’s important to realize that everyone may not have it as good as we do. Stories like these not only show us how destructive poverty can be. Books like The House on Mango Street also help readers understand that overcoming poverty isn’t simply a matter of working harder or budgeting more wisely. And realizations like these are the first steps toward building that bridge of unity.

Issues revolving around ethnicity addressed in The House on Mango Street clearly play a significant role in the work’s bannings. Especially these days when books exhibiting diversity are overwhelmingly challenged.

A perceived need to renounce diversity in the name of harmonious relations (as was the case in the dismantling of Tucson’s Mexican-American studies program) is not only dangerous, it’s an exercise in futility.

For, as author, activist and poet, Audre Lorde points out, it isn’t the actual differences between people that cause serious social division:

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“It is rather our refusal to recognize those differences and examine the distortions which result from our misnaming them, and their effects upon human behavior and expectation.”[55]

One of the metaphoric functions of Esperanza’s name speaks to such misnaming. Esperanza tells us they say her name “funny” at school, “as if the syllables were made out of tin and hurt the roof of your mouth.” In its original Spanish, on the other hand, her name “is made out of a softer something, like silver. [56]

That her name is pronounced as if the syllables were made of tin when they say it rather than the silver it evokes in Spanish, indicates the ethnic dynamic. Esperanza’s Mexican heritage is clearly “less than” in this ethnic equation.

In the vignette Cathy Queen of Cats, the titular character Cathy, “great great grand cousin of the queen of France,” has something negative to say about pretty much everyone in the neighborhood.[57]  And Cathy’s declaration to recent arrival Esperanza, that her family is moving because “the neighborhood is getting bad” makes the situation crystal clear. Embodying white flight, they’ll move “a little farther away every time people like [Esperanza] keep moving in.”[58]

Geraldo No Last Name is mentioned above in reference to lack of services in impoverished neighborhoods, but it’s also relevant here. Dialogue undoubtedly spoken by anglo police officers represents the discrimination that results from distorted differences. All these officers see is “just another brazer who didn’t speak English. Just another wetback. You know the kind.”[59]

It’s bad enough that Geraldo dies because the emergency room was severely understaffed. But, because of their distorted view of who he was, the police didn’t even consider the possibility that Geraldo was leading a meager existence so he could send money home to his family.  And it didn’t seem to matter that someone would be worried about what happened to him.

Cisneros doesn’t just point the discriminatory finger at others. In Those Who Don’t she directs it at herself as well. [60] Their “knees go shakity-shake” and their “car windows get rolled up tight,” and their “eyes look straight” ahead when they go into “a neighborhood of another color” too.[61] “That is how it goes and goes.”[62] But it doesn’t have to.

Yes, it’s a lifetime pursuit to extract such distortions from our worldview, as we recognize, reclaim, and define the differences we’ve distorted. But we can work together with those we define as different from ourselves, as we endeavor toward a society where we can each flourish.

Cisneros sees her male contemporaries’ characterization of life in the barrio as that of a “Sesame Street-like, funky neighborhood.”[63] “I’m sure [those colorful viewpoints] are true to some extent,” she states. But as a woman Cisneros wanted to counter those picturesque characterizations.[64]

Sexual assault is indeed one of the social issues Mango Street challengers contend they’re “protecting children” from hearing about.[65] But, assault doesn’t only happen in the barrio, and shielding teens from such content renders them naïve and vulnerable, like Lois (who symbolically smells like babies), the kind of girl who gets taken “into alleys.”[66]

In the vignette The Family of Little Feet, Esperanza and her friends are given high-heeled shoes that would otherwise have been thrown away. The girls realize these are grown-up lady shoes, but they have no idea that high heels are sexualized articles of clothing, or what that even means.

They innocently wear these shoes around the neighborhood, naively feeling grown and beautiful. After a while, the girls encounter a man sitting on the stoop of a tavern across the street from where they’re gathered. When he asks Esperanza’s friend Rachel her name, she tells him without thinking – and sets the following exchange in motion:

.
“Rachel, you are prettier than a yellow taxicab. You know that?”

But we don’t like it. “We got to go”, Lucy says.
“If I give you a dollar will you kiss me? How about a dollar. I give you a dollar,” and he looks in his pocket for wrinkled money.
“We have to go right now,” Lucy says taking Rachel’s hand because she looks like she’s thinking about that dollar.[67]

Though the girls come out of the encounter unscathed, it frightens them to the point that they hide the shoes “under a powerful bushel basket” on Rachel and Lucy’s back porch.[68] Rachel and Lucy’s mother ultimately finds the shoes and throws them away… and the girls are perfectly fine with that. It’s just a good thing Rachel was with someone who recognized the situation as dangerous.

We touched on the incident that occurs on the first day of Esperanza’s first job above, but in a different context. The conversation the older man initiates with Esperanza is predatory in nature, one that takes advantage of her clearly vulnerable state. He’s obviously done this before and knows exactly how to get Esperanza into a submissive and compliant state.

The outcome could have been much more physically devastating than a hard kiss on the mouth, but it’s still a violation, and as such psychologically damaging. Forewarned is forearmed, as the saying goes. And being familiar with this story could be the very thing that protects another young person from falling prey under similar circumstances… but they can’t be prepared if they aren’t allowed to read it.

It’s significant that The Monkey Garden and Red Clowns appear back-to-back. Over the course of their day in the “monkey garden” where the neighborhood kids hang out, a boy named Tito and his friends have gotten hold of Sally’s keys and refuse to give them back until she gives each one of them a kiss.[69]

As Esperanza watches Sally go into the garden with Tito’s buddies, her instincts are correct.  She feels like something isn’t right, like Sally needed to be saved from Tito and his friends. So, Esperanza picks up “three big sticks and a brick and figure[s] this [is] enough.”[70]

When Esperanza confronts them, Sally tells her in no uncertain terms to go home. They all look at Esperanza “as if [she] is the one that is crazy,” making her feel ashamed for attempting to rescue her friend.

Sadly, it’s lack of information that leaves Esperanza vulnerable to the serious attack inflicted on her at the carnival in the following vignette. She’s waiting by the Tilt-a-whirl for Sally to return from an encounter with a boy she just met, whose friends stay behind with Esperanza. Though her assault isn’t described in detail, the reader is made aware that Esperanza has been raped.

The fact that Esperanza had no idea this act could be forced upon her makes matters even worse. The only information she has on the subject of sex came from movies, storybooks, and Sally (who previously shamed Esperanza for thinking she needed to be saved from a group of boys). As a result, Esperanza didn’t see being alone with this group of boys as the threat it was.

So, as Esperanza’s lamentation demonstrates, her assault is more than a matter of grievous physical violation, it’s also one of betrayal:

.
He said I love you, Spanish girl, I love you… Why did you leave me all alone? I waited my whole life. You’re a liar. They all lied. All the books and magazines, everything that told it wrong… Sally, you lied, you lied.[71]

Yes, sexual assault is another uncomfortable subject. And to be sure, conversations about personal violation or abuse of any kind should be handled in a careful and sensitive manner. Discussing a story where those things happen to a fictitious character is one way to do that. It’s a method social workers and counselors frequently utilize… in fact, with this very book.

Talking about something that happened to a fictious character allows students to gain the information they need to avoid situations like the one Esperanza found herself in without the trauma that can result from a more threatening “this can happen to you” version of such conversations.[72]

It’s understandable that some parents feel they should be the ones to having these conversations with their own children. But, prohibiting every student from reading a book because it mentions sexual assault isn’t protecting them at all. In fact, quite the opposite. It’s rendering them naïve, like Esperanza, and therefore vulnerable to falling prey themselves.

As they sit on Edna’s steps, Alicia is “listening to [Esperanza’s] sadness.” Esperanza is sorrowful because she lives in a house she’s ashamed of, in a place she doesn’t “ever want to come from.”[73] They talk about leaving Mango Street. And Esperanza declares she won’t come back “until somebody makes it better,” prompting Alicia to pose the question “who’s going to do it? The mayor?”[74]

Alicia has a point. It takes more than the mayor alone to make any place a better place to live. It takes all of us working together to accomplish that. And the first step is to recognize the humanity of people most unlike us, and cease seeing them in opposition to ourselves…  to build a bridge of unity. Books like The House on Mango Street, that promote diversity and enlighten us to distorted perspectives, help us do that.

That’s my take on Sandra Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street – what’s yours?
Check out this Discussion Guide to get you started.

#banned books      #Hispanic authors      #published 1980s      #The House on Mango Street

Endnotes:

[1] Kasey Meehan and Jonathan Friedman. “Banned in the USA: State Laws Supercharge Book Suppression in Schools.” PEN America.

[2] Jago, Carol. Sandra Cisneros in the Classroom: Do not forget to reach. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English, 2002. Pg 6.

[3] Gross, Rebecca. “Sandra Cisneros: Recognizing Ourselves.” American Artscape Magazine. Vol. No1, 2016. National Endowment for the Arts. https://www.arts.gov/stories/magazine/2016/1/telling-all-our-stories-arts-and-diversity/sandra-cisneros

[4] Gross, Rebecca. “Sandra Cisneros: Recognizing Ourselves.” American Artscape Magazine. Vol. No1, 2016. National Endowment for the Arts. https://www.arts.gov/stories/magazine/2016/1/telling-all-our-stories-arts-and-diversity/sandra-cisneros

[5] Gross, Rebecca. “Sandra Cisneros: Recognizing Ourselves.” American Artscape Magazine. Vol. No1, 2016. National Endowment for the Arts. https://www.arts.gov/stories/magazine/2016/1/telling-all-our-stories-arts-and-diversity/sandra-cisneros

[6] Queirós, Carlos J. “Sandra Cisneros: Facing Backward.” April 1, 2009. AARP. https://www.aarp.org/entertainment/books/info-04-2009/sandra_cisneros_house_on_mango_street_25th_anniversary.html

Sandra Cisneros Biography. Sandra Cisneros.com  https://www.sandracisneros.com/mylifeandwork

[7] “What Is a Bildungsroman? Definition and Examples of Bildungsroman in Literature.” August 30, 2021. MasterClass
https://www.masterclass.com/articles/what-is-a-bildungsroman-definition-and-examples-of-bildungsroman-in-literature

[8] C. J. Jung. Memories, Dreams, Reflections. Edited by Anelia Jaffe’. Translated by Richard and Clara Winston. New York: Vintage Books, 1961. Pg 198.

[9] Satz, Martha. “Returning to One’s House: An Interview with Sandra Cisneros.” Southwest Review. Vol. 82, Issue 2. Spring 1997

[10] “Sandra Cisneros’s Real House, Like the One on Mango Street.” Literary Chicago. https://chicagoliteraryhof.org/literary_chicago_map/landmark/sandra-cisneross-real-house-like-the-one-on-mango-street

[11] Matchie, Thomas. “Literary Continuity in Sandra Cisneros’s The House on Mango Street.” The Midwest Quarterly. Autumn, 1995. Vol 37, issue 1.

O’Reilly Herrerra, Andrea. “’Chambers of Consciousness’: Sandra Cisneros and the Development of Self in the BIG House on Mango Street.” The Bucknell Review. Vol. 30. Issue 1. Jan 1995. Pg 202.

Satz, Martha. “Returning to One’s House: An Interview with Sandra Cisneros.” Southwest Review. Vol. 82, Issue 2. Spring 1997

[12] Robb, Brian H. “Homeownership And The American Dream.” September 28, 2021. Forbes.com   https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesrealestatecouncil/2021/09/28/homeownership-and-the-american-dream/?sh=7e48a8c623b5

Chandrasekhar, Charu. “Can New Americans Achieve the American Dream? Promoting Homeownership in Immigrant Communities.” 39 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev. 169 (2004)  https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/hcrcl39&div=9&id=&page=

Scott, Roxanne. “A Nation Engaged: For Immigrants, Is Homeownership The American Dream?” October 14, 2016. Louisville Public Media.  https://www.lpm.org/nation-engaged-immigrants-homeownership-american-dream

[13] Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. New York: Vintage Books, 1991. Pg 4.

[14] Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. New York: Vintage Books, 1991. Pg 4.

[15] “Sandra Cisneros.” In Interviews with writers of the post-colonial world. Edited by Jussawala, F., & Dasenbrock, R. W. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1992.Pg. 302

[16] Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. New York: Vintage Books, 1991. Pg 4-5.

[17] Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. New York: Vintage Books, 1991. Pg 64.

Cisneros, Sandra. “The Author Responds to Your Letter.” In A House of My Own. New York: Penguin Random House, 2015. Pg 310.

[18] Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. New York: Vintage Books, 1991. Pg 87.

[19] Cisneros, Sandra. “Only Daughter.” Latina: Women’s Voices From the Borderlands. Edited by Lillian Castillo-Speed. New York: Touchstone/Simon & Schuster, 1995.

[20] Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. New York: Vintage Books, 1991. Pg 108

[21] Reese, Leslie. Storytelling in Mexican Homes: Connections Between Oral and Literacy Practices. National Library of Medicine. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23565052/

Chicana/o/x Family Storytelling – Oral Traditions & Cultural Identity. INSTITUTE OF CHICANA/O/X PSYCHOLOGY & COMMUNITY WELLNESS  https://razapsychology.org/2023/02/05/chicana-o-x-family-storytelling-oral-traditions-cultural-identity/#:~:text=We%20know%20our%20elders%20who,and%20strengthen%20our%20cultural%20identity.

[22] “Sandra Cisneros.” In Interviews with writers of the post-colonial world. Edited by Jussawala, F., & Dasenbrock, R. W. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1992. Pp 292, 305.

[23] “Sandra Cisneros.” In Interviews with writers of the post-colonial world. Edited by Jussawala, F., & Dasenbrock, R. W. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1992. Pg 291.

[24] Mizrahi, Isaac. “Storytelling Is A Different Story For Each Culture.” Feb. 19, 2019. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/isaacmizrahi/2019/02/19/storytelling-is-a-different-story-for-each-culture/?sh=6e8c4db667ad

[25] Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. New York: Vintage Books, 1991. Pg 13.

[26] Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. New York: Vintage Books, 1991. Pg 22.

[27] Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. New York: Vintage Books, 1991. Pg 55.

[28] Nogue’, Pilar Godayol. “Interviewing Sandra Cisneros: Living on the Frontera.” Lectora. Vol. 2, 1996. Pg 68.

[29] Nogue’, Pilar Godayol. “Interviewing Sandra Cisneros: Living on the Frontera.” Lectora. Vol. 2, 1996. Pg 68.

[30] Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. New York: Vintage Books, 1991. Pg 36.

[31] Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. New York: Vintage Books, 1991. Pg 30.

[32] Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. New York: Vintage Books, 1991. Pg 73.

[33] Nogue’, Pilar Godayol. “Interviewing Sandra Cisneros: Living on the Frontera.” Lectora. Vol. 2, 1996. Pg 68.

[34] Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. New York: Vintage Books, 1991. Pg 22.

[35] Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. New York: Vintage Books, 1991. Pg 40.

[36] Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. New York: Vintage Books, 1991. Pg 70.

[37] Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. New York: Vintage Books, 1991. Pg 8.

[38] Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. New York: Vintage Books, 1991. Pg 8.

[39] Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. New York: Vintage Books, 1991. Pg 11.

[40] Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. New York: Vintage Books, 1991. Pg 32.

[41] Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. New York: Vintage Books, 1991. Pg 79.

[42] Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. New York: Vintage Books, 1991. Pg 81.

[43] Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. New York: Vintage Books, 1991. Pg 102.

[44] Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. New York: Vintage Books, 1991. Pg 88.

[45] Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. New York: Vintage Books, 1991. Pg 89.

[46] Cisneros, Sandra. “Notes of a Native Daughter.” In Tales of Two Americas: Stories of Inequality in a Divided Nation. Edited by John Freeman. New York: Penguin Books, 2017. Pg. 21.

[47] Cisneros, Sandra. “Notes of a Native Daughter.” In Tales of Two Americas: Stories of Inequality in a Divided Nation. Edited by John Freeman. New York: Penguin Books, 2017. Pg. 24.

[48] Cisneros, Sandra. “Notes of a Native Daughter.” In Tales of Two Americas: Stories of Inequality in a Divided Nation. Edited by John Freeman. New York: Penguin Books, 2017. Pg. 23.

Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. New York: Vintage Books, 1991. Pg 86.

[49] Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. New York: Vintage Books, 1991. Pg 66.

[50] Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. New York: Vintage Books, 1991. Pg 3, 49.

[51] Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. New York: Vintage Books, 1991. Pg 29.

[52] Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. New York: Vintage Books, 1991. Pg 45.

[53] Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. New York: Vintage Books, 1991. Pg 86.

[54] Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. New York: Vintage Books, 1991. Pg 91.

[55] Lorde, Audre. “Age, Race, Class and Sex: Women Redefining Difference.” In Sister Outsider. Trumansburg, N. Y.: Crossing Press, 1984. Pp 114-123.

[56] Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. New York: Vintage Books, 1991. Intro.

[57] Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. New York: Vintage Books, 1991. Pg 12.

[58] Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. New York: Vintage Books, 1991. Pg 13.

[59] Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. New York: Vintage Books, 1991. Pg 66.

[60] Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. New York: Vintage Books, 1991. Pg 28.

[61] Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. New York: Vintage Books, 1991. Pg 28.

[62] Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. New York: Vintage Books, 1991. Pg 28.

[63] Satz, Martha. “Returning to One’s House: An Interview with Sandra Cisneros.” Southwest Review. Vol. 82, Issue 2. Spring 1997.  Pg 169.

[64] Satz, Martha. “Returning to One’s House: An Interview with Sandra Cisneros.” Southwest Review. Vol. 82, Issue 2. Spring 1997.  Pg 169.

[65] Cavendish-Jones, Colin. “Why was The House on Mango Street banned?” Enotes.

[66] Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. New York: Vintage Books, 1991. Pg 73.

[67] Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. New York: Vintage Books, 1991. Pg 41-42.

[68] Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. New York: Vintage Books, 1991. Pg 42.

[69] Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. New York: Vintage Books, 1991. Pg 96.

[70] Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. New York: Vintage Books, 1991. Pg 97.

[71] Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. New York: Vintage Books, 1991. Pg 100.

[72] Cisneros, Sandra. “The Author Responds to Your Letter.” In A House of My Own. New York: Penguin Random House, 2015. Pg 309.

[73] Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. New York: Vintage Books, 1991. Pg 106.

[74] Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. New York: Vintage Books, 1991. Pg 107.

Images:

The House on Mango Street mock cover. Bartling.

Esperanza’s dream house.
Photo by Scott Webb on Unsplash

Sandra Cisneros in the backyard of the home that was the inspiration for the house on Mango Street.
https://chicagoliteraryhof.org/literary_chicago_map/landmark/sandra-cisneross-real-house-like-the-one-on-mango-street

The Storyteller by Publio de Tommasi. Public Domain.
https://picryl.com/media/the-storyteller-unknown-date-by-publio-de-tommasi-709137

Refusing to wait for the ball and chain.
Photo by Daria Nepriakhina  on Unsplash

Magnificent Mile made me ashamed of my shoes.
Dovydenas, Jonas. Along 26th St. between Kedzie and Pulaski, in the predominantly Mexican American Little Village neighborhood, Chicago, Illinois by Jonas Dovydenas.  Chicago, Illinois 1977. https://www.loc.gov/item/afc1981004.172/.

That is how it goes and goes.
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Chicago’s barrio is not a colorful, Sesame Street-like neighborhood.
Along 26th St. between Kedzie and Pulaski, in the predominantly Mexican American Little Village neighborhood, Chicago, Illinois by Jonas Dovydenas. Chicago, Illinois. 1977. https://www.loc.gov/item/afc1981004.b71993/.

Who’s going to make it better?
Photo by Wai Siew on Unsplash

FYI: