In English her name means hope. In Spanish it means too many letters. It means sadness, it means waiting. It is like the number nine. It was her great-grandmother’s name and now it is hers. She was a horse and so was her great-grandma, born like her in the Chinese year of the horse- which is suppose to be bad luck if you’re born female. At school they say her name funny, as if the syllables were made out of tin and hurt the roof of your mouth. She would like to be baptized under a new name, a name more like the real her, the one nobody sees. Esperanza as Lisandra or Maritza or Zeze the X. She always lived on Mango Street. Before that they lived on Loomis on the third floor, and before that they lived on Keeler. Before Keeler it was Paulina, and before that she doesn’t remember. But what she remembers most is moving a lot. Each time seemed there’d be one more of them. By the time they got to Mango Street they were six of them-mama, papa, Carlos, Kiki, her sister Nenny and her. The house on Mango Street is theirs and they don’t have to pay the rent to anybody, or share the yard with people downstairs. Esperenza’s hair is lazy. It never obeys barrettes or bands. Nenny and she don’t look like sisters. Esperanza and Nenny, they are more alike than anybody can know. Their laughter for example. Esperanza likes Marian, who has a boyfriend in Puerto Rico. She is the one who told her how Davey the Baby’s sister got pregnant and what cream is better for taking off mustache hair and of other things. Rita, Margre, Enre said that a cloud looks like Esperenza’s fat and ugly face when she comes to school in the morning. They were mean to her. They even called her stupid. Esperanza has skinny legs and spotted with satin scars where scabs were picled, but legs, good to look at, and long. When she put on her new high heel shoes, they looked beautiful. When they were walking down the street, everybody was looking at them. Even the grocery man who knows them told them to take them off before they will get hurt. But Esperanza won’t listen she went to the bum and she asked him if she looked pretty. The bum said that she look beautiful and then he offered her a one dollar if she can kiss him. She got scared and she ran away. She is tired now of being beautiful because she could get hurt. At school Esperanza always saw those people eating in the canteen. Only those who lived far away could eat. Esperanza was too lazy to go home and eat at home. Her house wasn’t far away and wasn’t that close. When she wanted to eat in the canteen the principal would not let her because she didn’t live far away. Esperanza was a shy girl and she was so skinny and weak that she couldn’t even blow a balloon without getting dizzy. She always cries when nuns yells at her, even if there’re not yelling. But she got a chance to eat at the canteen. When she had to go to her cousin’s baptism, her mother bought her new clothes and socks and a new slip with a little rose on it and a pink and white striped dress. She bought her everything except new shoes. Esperanza was embarrassed to wear her old shoes to the party. The old shoes were brown and white that she used to wear them everyday to school. Uncle asked her to dance in the party. She was embarrassed and shy, but she went anyway. Her uncle spins her, and her skinny arms bent the way he taught her. Her mother watches, and so does everybody in the room, saying, wow. She danced like in the movies. All were clapping when the music was over. Esperenza wants to have hips and move like heebe-jeebe, picking up on the cue. She had to get a job. Her aunt found her one at the Peter Pan Photo Finishers on North Broadway where she worked and her aunt also lied about her age. She told them that she is one year older. In the work she had to wear white gloves, the work was easy. Esperenza never knows how sick her aunt was. Her aunt said to remember keep writing, it will keep her free. Espenza liked to show Ruthie the book she takes out of the library. The Four Skinny Trees are the ones who understand Esperenza. She is the only one who understands them. They have skinny necks and pointy elbows just like Esperenza. Esperenza want a house on a hill like the ones with the gardens where her papa works. She used to go every Sunday, to her papa. She was tired of looking at what they can’t have.

She is important in the novel because the author probably knows somebody like her and the whole story was based on her. The author was describing a young girl, whose neighborhood is one of harsh realities and harsh beauty. The author wrote this story about her, how she didn’t want to belong to her neighborhood. Therefore, this character is important because she was the only one who was coming into her power, and inventing for herself what she will become.

I would like to be the main character too, because being a main character it is like the whole story is base on you. You are like somebody very famous like in the movies. You play the whole roll. It is wonderful being a main character because the readers always pay more attention to the main character. They like main character. Therefore, I would love to be a main character because everybody will like me.

This character that I wrote about seems to me very nice. As far as I can say this character to me looks very poor and a person who have good heart. The way the author describes her she seems to me like a normal teenager. She went to school, she lived with her parents, have friends, and she would get in trouble. This how a normal teenager behave. I would love to have her as a friend because she is not a bad girl. Perhaps she would be a great friend for me because she loves to read books and she love to talk about the books. However, I like to listen to the person who is retelling or telling the stories. This way I know which book should I read by myself. It would be great having her as a friend. I love to be friendly and maybe that is also why I would like her as my friend.