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Let It Rain Coffee Character Analysis

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The “I” in Cultural Identity
While reading the texts throughout the quarter, I began to notice a pattern. Each character had a unique Cultural Identity that shaped their perspective on their experiences and the experiences of those around them. For each of these characters though, Cultural Identity seemed to be defined by something different. For some it was communal practices and for others it was family. In some instances language played a role. Certain characters, such as Tayo from Ceremony and Ichiro from NoNo Boy, changed based on their desire to assimilate to the culture they were present in. The only commonality between each of the individual characters was their association with their community affecting their Cultural Identity. This …show more content…

This is linked to her differing Cultural Identity. When they are in the Dominican Republic they are living life to survive each day but in America, they are living for the sake of success for the future of being Americans in Dallas that Esperanza wants so much. In the Dominican Republic, it was okay for Esperanza’s husband to be violent to protect his life and livelihood. “I’m just saying it doesn’t matter how good we are, you go out into the world and people will try to beat you up and take everything you got. I want them to learn how to defend themselves.” (57). This mentality was acceptable to Esperanza in the Dominican Republic. But when they are in New York, it is no longer okay for her family to act this way. “What have we talked about? To be different, to be decent, to have children who will grow up to be good people and get good jobs. We don’t want them to become tigres, fighting like cats on the street.” (56). Esperanza believes that the values of America are superior to the street-smart ways of the DR. As such, she wants her family to be better, so she chooses to identify with the American value systems she has witnessed, resulting in conflict between her and her husband, who became reminiscent of his Dominican Identity when his father Don Chan came to live with the

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Esperanza and her family are always moving because they do not have much money, but they finally moved into a house on Mango Street where they “Don’t have to pay rent to anybody, or share the yard with the people downstairs, or be careful not to make too much noise” (703). Although it sounded like a nice place, when a nun from her school saw where Esperanza lived, she said, “You live there?” (703). That made Esperanza feel like nothing and made her realize she needs a real house, one that is really nice. Esperanza wants to change her life and make the best of what she has.

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These problems coming to light through the many women Esperanza looks up to, drive her to rise above her obstacles, and become more than just another poorly treated woman. Despite the variety of girls in the neighborhood, one of Esperanza’s closest friends ends up being Sally, who has moved from one abusive home to the next. Sally’s father was a very strict man and she constantly disobeyed him once out of his sight. Whenever Sally is caught dressing “provocative” or acting “too old” her father decides to teach her a lesson.

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But still feels lonely. Also, throughout the story Esperanza gets negative attention from boys because of her culture. For some men she comes across in the story they see her as a toy for her ethnicity and not being from America. This also embarrasses her as she is still trying to find out what love is but can’t because if the negative attention. Therefore, even though she struggles pushing through with her ethnicity, others have it just as hard as well, showing how different ethnicities can clash.

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She knows she is lucky to have a less problematic family to support and her during good choices or bad decisions. Esperanza talks about the relationships of each family on Mango Street until she leaves and finds a better place. The other families on Mango Street also have it hard, but they don’t have the bond of the Esperanza’s

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The male-dominated society that Esperanza grows up in forces the idea that women are weak and should stay locked in their houses while men go off to work. The men are immoral and seedy, as expressed in the chapter in which a homeless man leers and asks for a kiss from the little girls. Esperanza experiences the evil of her community when she is sexually assaulted, causing her to lose her previous desire to explore her sexuality. Before being assaulted, she wanted to be “beautiful and cruel” like her friend Sally, because Sally was what she understood to be a perfect woman. However, after her rape she decides that she needs to discover her own identity for herself.

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Esperanza acquires a sense of who she is as a young woman. These characters aid in her decided stance on gender roles and how she wants to evade them as she starts to build her own life. Through Esperanza’s narration, the darkness that correlates with the roles of women is brought into light. The gender roles found in the book are still issues today. Such ideas ruin much of society because people have yet to question and altar them.

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Esperanza’s interest is writing poem, appears in many of the chapters where it explains a way of bonding with her community by sharing poems with one another. Because Esperanza has become a writer her observations strengthen throughout the novel. One example of how she matures through writing is in the beginning of the book she told stories that were obviously meant for a younger audiences but through the middle of the book she started to use more observation based upon what she saw which helped develop the story more for the reader. This change shows that she is becoming an artist, and also that she is starting to distance herself from her community, since she focuses more on capturing experiences than living through them, she starts to further her self from interaction and focuses more on observation of the people around her. By the end of The House on Mango Street, she knows that she underwent a huge transformation and her relationship with mango st is starting to weaken.

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Esperanza is often humiliated not only by where she lives, but also by her physical appearance, hence causing a restriction in her climb to a higher social class. Esperanza is frequently ashamed of her family’s broken-down house in an urban, poor

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As a child, Esperanza wants only escape from mango Street. Her dream of independents and "self-definition" also means leaving her family behind without any responsibilities to her family. Throughout the book, her has also faced some situation where is feels ashamed to be part of the Mango Street community and in some instances refuses to admit she has anything to do with mango street. At the beginning of the book near the earlier chapters, Esperanza feels very insecure about herself in general along with the house that she lives in. As mentioned before, she doesn’t want to discuss her name nor where she lives.

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They grow up and they grow down and grab the earth between their hairy toes and bite the sky with violent teeth and never quit their anger. This is how they keep.” (Cisneros 93) Esperanza deduces that she must follow their example, and make her way into the world, and for that, she’ll have to move away to, hopefully she wishes, her dream house – her soil for embedding her

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“In the meantime they’ll just have to move a little farther north from Mango Street, a little farther away every time people like us keep moving in (Cisneros 13).” This quote is a significant part of the story because it shows how Esperanza truly feels about herself and her family. She thinks that because she is poor and lives and a bad neighborhood people move away from her family. Esperanza doesn’t think very much of her or her family at all. She thinks that it is because of their race that people do not want to be near them.

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However, Esperanza’s negative view of herself slowly changes as she begins to focus on her larger community and her place within it. Through this, Cisneros shows that knowing and accepting where we have come from is an important part of growing up and determining who we are. In the beginning of

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