Stereotypes In One Holy Night By Sandra Cisneros

In One Holy Night, the author Sandra Cisneros suggests a difference in standards between men and women in the Latino community binds the female characters to stereotypes that are difficult to undo. Cisneros writes about a young girl who falls in love with a guy while she works at her family's pushcart. Eventually, they fall in love, and the young girl finds out she is pregnant. The young girl’s grandmother finds out she is pregnant and condemns her for it. Ultimately, she doesn’t blame her because “it’s Uncle Lalo’s fault because he’s the man of the family, and if he had come home on time like he was supposed to and worked the pushcart on the days he was told to and watched over his goddaughter, who is too foolish to look after herself” (Cisneros

The girl is capable of doing an adult job which means she can care for herself. Additionally, how the grandma paints uncle lalo as strong shows the difference in stereotypes between men and women in the Latino community. Women can’t be left alone because they are weak, whereas men are the protector and are strong, so they protect women. This diminishes women’s values while boosting men's values. Men have a positive stereotype attached to them because they are classified as strong, while women have a negative stereotype associated with them because they are labeled as weak. Apart from this, these stereotypes are difficult to stray away from. In the short story, we see the girl's family find out that she is pregnant. Her uncle is incredibly disappointed in her because he claims, “if they had never left Mexico in the first place, shame enough would have kept a girl from doing evil things” (Cisneros 28). This statement chastises the girl for freely expressing her sexuality. The words “shame” and “evil” hold an extraordinary power because of the severity of someone with that

In the short story, the girl recounts times in her childhood when she had strict rules to follow due to her grandma's fear. She also reminisces about her childhood. While reminiscing these memories, she could comprehend her grandmother better because she “understood why Abuelita didn’t let me sleep over at Lourdes's house full of too many brothers” (Cisneros 30-31). The reason why Abuelita didn’t let her sleep over at Lourdes's house is that she thought her brothers might try to sexually assault her while she is sleeping over. This strict boundary her grandmother set for her helped her because it protected her from possibly going through something traumatic. Apart from this, this shows that Abuelita was very strict with her so that men wouldn’t hurt her. Furthermore, this fear of what men are capable of is shown when Abuelita “ found out I was going to dar a luz, she cried until her eyes were little, and blamed Uncle Lalo, and Uncle Lalo blamed this country, and Abuelita blamed the infamy of men”(Cisneros 32). The word “infamy” returns the reader to the ideas of shame and evil, but this time these words are used to label the men whom women need protecting. The men are stereotyped as having a bad reputation, which means that Abuelita thinks badly of men and not of the girl. She