“Ay! Mamacita, who does not belong, every once in a while lets out a cry, hysterical, high, as if he had to the only skinny thread that kept her alive, the only road out to that country,” is a quote from the book, House on Mango Street. The chapter this quote is from is called No Speak English and it’s about the first day of Mamacita who just moved to America with her baby copes with the new responsibilities and changes.
The mom sits by a window day by day and loathes about a pink house in a photograph many Limes throughout the story. The pink represents her past and how she wishes to go back to it. At the end of the chapter the son sings in English and the mom starts to cry the child singing in English represents the acceptance of the country.
The overlying theme throughout this chapter is how the family is where home is ”Ay, Caray! We are home.
This is home,” the husband says when his wife longs for her pink house. She has a hard Lime adjusting and has second thoughts about coming here but why did she take the first step by coming here anyways? She wanted to be with her family no matter what. She left everything behind just to be with her family, her home, her culture, and everything she knew behind. She did have trouble coping with the new environment but she tried for her family. I know this because I asked my myself the question, “Why do people leave their country and move to another?” My aunt’s family moved to America because they had a lot of family over here and they wanted to be together.
My aunt stayed at my grandpa‘s house.
For the first few days, she tried to get used to her new responsibilities as an American. My parents showed them around downtown and we happened to see a job opening at a Salon. My aunt applied and she got the job. She had a stable income and was able to support her family, the reason why she even came over to America in the first place. It took her family a while to adjust to the new responsibilities that came with the move but they got it nonetheless. Close to the end of the chapter, the baby boy starts singing in English to the Pepsi commercial on the tv. The gesture showed acceptance of the country because the baby was with his family. The theme of the chapter overall is to put your family first, ahead of everything else no matter the difficulties that you may face.
Family Importance in Mango Street. (2023, Jan 08). Retrieved from https://paperap.com/theme-of-the-importance-of-family-in-a-chapter-from-the-house-on-mango-street-by-sandra-cisneros/