Achieving The American Dream In The House On Mango Street

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The American Dream is considered to be the ideal that all US citizens will have equal opportunity to achieve the life they hope for. Achieving the american dream has been prove to be very difficult to achieve for most people due to three major reasons; discrimination, poverty and culture/language. In the House on Mango Street they face all of three of those factors, but most importantly discrimination. Not being able to speak english while living in America can be very hard. Not only will you not be able to communicate, but some people are not understanding of those you can not speak english. Finding a job or simply trying to take the train station from one place to another has become difficult. In the House on Mango Street Mamacita says to the little baby “ No speak english, no speak english”, as the baby is singing in another language. She is encouraging him to speak english because she knows how hard it is to learn to speak english when it is not your first language. …show more content…

Poverty can affect many different elements in someone's life and it is very hard to overcome. In the House on Mango Street, Esperanza's mother said “ You want to know why I quit school? Because I don't have nice clothes”. She couldn't afford the clothes she wanted to be able to fit in. She felt as though if she couldn’t fit in, then she shouldn't go to school because she didn't want to stick out. Esperanza also says “ Someday she would like to go to the ballet. Someday she would like to see a play.” This demonstrates that poverty can follow you you whole life and prevent you from doing anything that may be enjoyable. People in poverty have to spend what many the make or get from the government on basic necessities such as food or paying for a

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