Only Daughter By Sandra Cisenero

Do What You Want

In the text “Only Daughter” by Sandra Ciseneros, the story is about the life of Sandra Cisenero and how her being the only daughter affected her. Sandra as a kid was very isolated between her siblings because they were all boys. She has six brothers, and she even says “Being an only daughter in a family of six sons forced me by circumstance to spend a lot of time by myself because my brothers felt it beneath them to play with a girl in public,” (Cisneros 1). On top of having six brothers, her dad told her what she was destined to be. Sandra’s father tells her that she will just be someone’s wife. Sandra responds by ignoring what her father thought and instead works on what she was passionate about. I feel like I relate

Once, when I was in kindergarten, I was presented with a question by my teacher. The question was “what do you want to be when you grow up?”. I was only five years old at the time, so I just said “I wanted to be a cop”. The reason at the time was because I wanted to save people and fight crime like a superhero. My mother responded with “Don’t be a cop, be a doctor”. My mom told me what I should be at such a young age and didn’t realize how much that could affect me. My experience related to what Sandra Ciseneros went through with her father. In 5th grade, Sandra explains to her father what she wanted to be and planned on doing for college. Her father answered with “Que bueno, mi’ha, that’s good,”( Cisneros 1). At least her father accepted her idea, but not for the right reason. The quote sounds that way, but in reality her father said what he said because she thought college would be a great environment for her to find a husband. Sandra’s thoughts were “What I didn’t realize was that my father thought college was good for girls—good for finding a husband,”(Cisenero 1). Instead of thinking of her college plans as something she is passionate about, Sandra’s father sees it as an opportunity for a husband. Parents want what's best for us, but sometimes what's best for us to do what we want. We have to go through our own struggles to find our own success. Parents set a

However, having a successful sibling paves the way for the younger ones to succeed easier. The thing about having successful siblings is that it can influence our parents' ideas. I have three older brothers and they are all doing well in what they do. One is a doctor, one is at UCLA, and the other is about to attend a great college. All of their decisions have made them successful and my mom sees it as ideas for me to become successful as well. My mom tells me what they did and it works so why don’t you do. Well it’s true, but they did it because they wanted to. I’m being forced to do it. In “Only Daughter” Sandra says “When my oldest brother graduated from medical school, he fulfilled my father’s dream that we study hard and use this—our heads, instead of this—our hands,”(Cisnero 2). Sandra would soon think about her choices and thought if she should have done what her father told her because it paid off for her brother. “Wasn’t college an investment? And hadn’t I spent all those years in college? Sandra scrambled. And if I didn’t marry, what was it all for?”(Cisneros 2). Sandra now didn’t believe she was doing the right things. Sandra was feeling doubt, but she did what she wanted anyway because that's what she wanted. She was striving for her own goals and even if she wasn’t gonna be as successful. She was gonna be happy about herself. Don’t do it cause they did it, do it cause you want