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Purple Politics-Our History Has Become Invisible By Sandra Cisneros

586 Words3 Pages

In 1996, Sandra Cisneros bought a house in the historic King William neighborhood of San Antonio, Texas. She made improvements to her home and painted it purple to reflect her Tejano heritage. However, her neighbors felt that the purple did not abide by the housing regulations of the neighborhood and petitioned the local commission to force Cisneros to change the color. I believe Sandra Cisneros should be able to keep her house purple. For many, the purple house is a tension between government and people. In her letter to the editor of the San Antonio Express-News, Martha Duke believes the city government should not be able to tell citizens what to do. Duke asserts “We pay for our homes, pay taxes, make repairs, maintain our yards and live …show more content…

Americans have the freedom to say what we want as long as it is not going to physically harm others. The color purple is similar to speech because it is how Cisneros wants to express her Tejano history. Since Cisneros’ house is not harming anyone, she should be able to change the color of her house to any color she wants. In Sandra Cisneros’ personal essay, Purple Politics-Our Tejano History Has Become Invisible, her argument is about reclaiming lost history. While trying to prove the local commission wrong, Cisneros asserts that “We don’t exist.” Cisneros claims that her history was lost in the colonization of German immigrants. Cisneros also claims that Tejanos were forced out of the area and isolated by the immigrants. Because of this, Cisneros wants to reclaim her Tejano history by keeping her house purple. I agree because the German immigrants forcing Tejanos out of the area is similar to the trail of tears. In 1830, the United States government wanted more land so the government developed an Indian removal act to steal Indian land. The Indian removal act was called the trail of tears because many Indians died on their journey west. If the removal of Indians was wrong then the removal of Tejanos should be wrong. Cisneros should be able to keep her house purple to reclaim her lost

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