House On Mango Street Sparknotes

As Stephen Brookfield, a renowned scholar in adult education, once asserted, “Who we are and how we are seen by the world are substantially shaped by perceptions of our racial, class, and ethnic identities...” (Brookfield 3) Race, class and culture are inescapable aspects of one’s life that affect how others perceive, judge and interact with one. Sandra Cisneros’, “House on Mango Street”, Langston Hughes’, “Harlem: A Dream Deferred” and Paul Laurence Dunbar’s, “We Wear the Mask” reinforce this idea.

Sandra Cisneros’, “House on Mango Street” is about a Mexican girl who is struggling with her family’s unfortunate economic position. From the beginning of the story, the narrator makes it clear that the family has been struggling financially. This

is evident in the narrator’s descriptions of the previous places she and her family resided in. “We had to leave the flat on Loomis quick. The water pipes broke and the landlord wouldn’t fix them because the house was too old.” (Cisneros 191) Because of their socio-economic status, the narrator and her family were forced to live under sub-par living conditions; conditions under which even the lowest of the middle class would not have to put up with. Living in such conditions made the narrator, and her family, feel embarrassed about their financial situation. This is what many Mexican-Americans felt like during the time that this novel was written. Poverty, racism, and hard labor were unfortunate parts of almost every Mexican-American family during the 1980s, and the narrator’s family is no exception. The tough treatment of Mexicans was a result of a large Latino immigration wave to California that took place throughout 1980s, the time that this piece was written. This was due to Nicaragua’s election of a socialist leader, Daniel Ortega. At the same time, the Mexican people were burdened by poverty because of the country’s ponderous national debt, driving many Mexicans to flee to the North to have a chance at economic stability.
In the mid 1980s, President Ronald Reagan asserted that the issue of immigration is that of national security.

In congress, Reagan stated that the United States “had lost control of its borders to an invasion of illegal immigrants.” This led to the passing of the Immigrant Reform and Control Act (IRCA) in 1986 . This led to an increase in security along the U.S.-Mexican border, and to a heightening in racism and discrimination against Mexicans, and Latinos, in general. Derogatory nicknames such as “coyote” and “grasshopper” came about in order to further demoralize the migrant workers.

The narrator understood that society associated her people with poverty and crime and she wanted to find a way to change that. She felt as though she was a representative of the Mexican-American community. When the nun came up to her and started asking about where she lived, the narrator felt embarrassed as she pointed to the apartment she lived in.

“There. I had to look to where she pointed---the third floor, the paint peeling, wooden bars Papa had nailed on the window so we would fall out. You live there? The way she said t made me feel like nothing. There. I lived there. I nodded.” (Cisneros 191)

The narrator felt ashamed, not only because of her family’s living conditions, but also because of how she felt she represented her community. More than anything, she wanted to prove that Mexican-Americans are more than migrant workers, they are a proud people with unique history and

culture.
This work directly relates to the theme of race, class, and culture because it demonstrates how closely they are interconnected. Unfortunately, even today, one’s race and culture could determine one’s socio-economic status because it determines the environment one lives in. Growing up as a Russian immigrant in the United States, I realized that I was fortunate to have been brought to a safe neighborhood. I was granted the opportunity to go to a great school, without having to worry about being evicted or skipping a meal. Not every person, however, is granted the same opportunities that I was given as a child. Members of minority groups are not given access to resources and opportunities to be able to achieve their dreams, and thus, are stuck in a loop, which prevents them from moving up in society. This issue is also addressed in Langston Hughes’ poem titled “Harlem: A Dream Deferred”.
Langston Hughes’, “Harlem: A Dream Deferred” is a poem written in 1951. This poem talks about the bindings on the American Dream that African-Americans experienced, at the time. In the early 1950s, racial segregation and prejudice plagued America. African-Americans were low-priority citizens in the eyes of both the society and the government. America remained partially segregated until the Supreme Court decision in the case of Brown vs. The Board of Education, in 1954 . The outcome of this case made any state laws permitting the creation of separate public schools for colored and non-colored students to be unconstitutional. Despite the advancements in Civil Rights, African-American people still faced problems simply due to the color of their skin. As the result of the thriving, socially-accepted racism, African-Americans fled to Harlem, a predominantly African-American neighborhood in New York City, which became the birthplace of the Harlem Renaissance, a time period during which music, literature, and art flourished. Hughes titled his poem after the birthplace of the Harlem Renaissance to demonstrate the importance of Harlem to the African-American community.
Even in recent history, African-Americans face challenges that have a lasting affect on their ability advance in society, making their climb up the socio-economic ladder even more arduous. The unemployment rate of African Americans, for example, remained more than twice the unemployment rate of whites between the years of 1982 and 1999. In this time period, the unemployment rate for whites was 3.6 percent while the unemployment rate for African-Americans was a whopping 8.2 percent .
Although more African-Americans were able to get stable jobs towards the beginning of the twenty-first century, the average number of complaints from this ethnic group was approximately 28,000 complaints, in 2001. Many of the people who complained believed that had lower wages than those of white people of the same occupation, and they believed that their possibility for professional growth in their respective occupations was limited due to their race.
Langston Hughes’, “Harlem: A Dream Deferred” relates to the theme of race, class, and culture because it unveils the intricate relationship between one’s class and race. African-Americans have been marginalized for centuries simply because of the color of their skin. Despite the advancements in civil rights, America is a long way away from providing equal opportunities to African-Americans and other minorities. Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poem titled, “We Wear the Mask” references the emotions African-Americans exhibited because of their second-class-citizen status in society in the twentieth century.
Paul Laurence Dunbar’s, “We Wear the Mask” refers to black people veiling their true feelings and emotions behind a feigned facial expression. Throughout history, society put pressure on black people to keep a smile on their faces while enduring racial discrimination in employment, segregation, and poverty.
The early twentieth century was exceptionally harsh for the African-American community. Society was ridden with the seemingly un-decaying remnants of slavery. At the turn of the century, Southern states instituted a series of laws allowing for the racial segregation of whites and blacks after the crucial Supreme Court decision of Plessy. Vs. Ferguson . The court ruled that racial segregation is constitutional as long as the institutions provided services of similar quality. In actuality, most, if not all the services and institutions were of inferior quality. Schools for African-Americans, for example, were nothing close to those of those created for white students, furthering the disparity between the education of whites and African-Americans.
Racial job discrimination was another major problem that plagued African-Americans at the turn of the twentieth century. In 1940, the average annual earnings of African-American men were about half of those of white men. This disparity was due to the anti-black job discrimination in America. African-Americans were denied well-paying jobs and forced to resign to working low-paying jobs in the fields of domestic and personal services, denying them the opportunity to advance in society and, therefore, denying them the American dream.
Paul Laurence Dunbar’s, “We Wear the Mask” relates to the theme of race, class, and culture by demonstrating the effect segregation, racial job discrimination and poverty had on the African-American population. Through this poem, Dunbar was able to successfully demonstrate that race, class, and culture were the deciding factors between living a comfortable life and living in shame and poverty, in the twentieth century.
Despite the differences in the time periods, Sandra Cisneros’, “House on Mango Street”, Langston Hughes’, “A Dream Deferred”, and Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “We Wear the Mask” all share the same theme of race, class, and culture. Each one of these pieces, in one way or another, depicts the struggle of a minority group, in America. These works relate the modern reader to this theme by putting the reader in the shoes of the people who experienced the consequences of racism that each respective piece describes. As a college freshman, I relate to the theme of race, class, and culture because I grew up as a Russian immigrant in America. Despite growing up in a peaceful neighborhood, I was exposed to the problems people of poorer neighborhoods experienced through the stories of my friends who resided in those neighborhoods. Understanding the challenges my friends faced made me realize how fortunate I was to be able to live without having to worry about my safety.
Race, class and culture are integral aspects of one’s life that affect how one is perceived by others around one.