Not a Monolith is a Teen Vogue series for Latinx Heritage Month 2023, highlighting the diversity of those in the Latinx community. From disability rights activists to rappers to drag queens, we're showing the range of not just backgrounds, but experiences that inform Latinx culture today.
In this op-ed, Sarah Chavera Edwards explores how The House on Mango Street inspired her to reconnect with her Chicana identity.
Growing up, I fit into the arms of both my white father and Mexican American mother; I could pass for either Chicana or white depending on who I was with. While I could float between identities, I started to notice at an early age that my dad was treated differently than my mom. He was greeted with friendly hellos at checkout lines, while she was followed around stores to make sure she didn’t shoplift.
I didn’t want the same treatment my mother got, so when my elementary school peers made fun of me for speaking Spanish, I stopped all together. By the time I'd reached high school, I'd lost the ability to speak the language at all. The other Mexican and Chicana girls in my public high school had quinceañeras, spoke fluent Spanish, and regularly visited relatives in Mexico. Having none of those things, I convinced myself I wasn’t a “real” Mexican, that my whiteness somehow won out in the absence of cultural tradition.
That’s how I existed until I read a book called The House on Mango Street by Chicana writer Sandra Cisneros.
I originally went to a high school where most were students of color, transferring later to a charter school where a majority were white. As a senior, my English teacher assigned our class to read The House on Mango Street, a novel of individual yet interconnected vignettes following Esperanza Cordero, a Chicana girl growing up in Chicago. I hadn’t heard of the book before, and didn’t know it was banned in some school districts.
Despite my early rejection of my Mexican heritage, I started to see different aspects of my life reflected back to me through Esperanza. As she wonders about the women in her family and if they are genuinely happy because they became what Latinx society dictated to them, I thought of my spirited, independent grandmother, who spent her life raising six children and taking care of the home. She always pushed my mom and I to get our education, to get out of barrios, and to be successful in a way she didn't feel she was. Through Esperanza’s exploration of the Spanish language, I was reminded how words can mean something beautiful in Spanish, but sound clunky or can’t be translated into English.
I saw myself in many parts of Esperanza and the book at large, but mostly, I related to Esperanza’s struggle to find an identity in both the Chicano and white American worlds.
I was engaged in my majority-white class’s daily discussions about the book, and was surprised that the other students didn’t relate to the reading as much as I did, or were even confused by it. To help them understand, our teacher explained aspects of Mexican American culture, and I started to realize she was talking about my culture. After class, I remember thinking, “Oh my god, I’m actually Mexican.” This awakening happened when I was 17 and still discovering who I was and who I wanted to be. I realized that being a Latina woman was a part of that discovery — all thanks to this book that has been banned and contested in many states, especially in the Southwest.
The reasons for banning it? In Tucson, Arizona, The House on Mango Street was banned in schools because it “promoted resentment towards a race or class of people.” And in 2012 in Oregon, the St. Helens school board banned the book and removed it from their middle school curriculum because of “concerns for the social issues presented” in the text. Some of the bans against the book have since been overturned. Despite the original reasons for the bans, I felt no resentment towards anyone after reading the book; I just felt happiness and pride that I finally saw myself in an English classroom.
After this revelation that I am Chicana and wanted to embrace it, I began exploring that part of my heritage. I started by talking to my mom about different ideas and experiences that were brought up in The House on Mango Street, asking if she could relate to any of them — and she did. We went over memories of my childhood, growing up staying at my grandma’s ChaCha yellow house in the barrio and speaking Spanish to other young Mexican children. We bonded over family recipes and Mexican folklore like La Llorona.
I felt like a piece of me had been missing and was found between the covers of a banned book.
When I graduated high school and started college, I was determined to learn Spanish again. To help my mission, I joined the Hispanic Honor Society, where I found more than just a connection to language: I found a community. We volunteered to mentor younger Latinx students. Even when our posters promoting our club were defaced with Trump slogans, we dug in our heels and staged a protest against racism on campus.
After graduation, I started my writing career and chose to write about Latinx issues from a Latinx perspective, because there is a giant hole in the writing and journalism industry where my community should be. Our stories deserve to be told and our people deserve to be seen.
My senior English teacher knew that other perspectives are important for both white students and students of color when she assigned The House on Mango Street. Despite the “controversy” around the book, it was necessary to reconnect to a piece of myself that I lost when I decided that being Mexican American was a defect.
With books being banned across the country, I worry about the missed opportunities for LGBTQ students, students of color, and other marginalized young people who won’t see themselves in the classroom like I did. They won’t learn that being themselves is not a negative, but something to be celebrated and explored. I continue my own celebration and exploration of my Chicano culture all thanks to a banned book.
