Anzaldua’s La Mestiza and It’s Application to The House on Mango Street
By: Julia Usitalo
“Cradled in one culture, sandwiched between two cultures, straddling all three cultures and their value systems, la mestiza undergoes a struggle of flesh, a struggle of borders, an inner war. Like all people, we perceive the version of reality that our culture communicates. Like others having or living in more than one culture we get multiple, often opposing messages. The coming together of two self-consisten but habitually incompatible frames of reference causes un choque, a cultural collision” (Anzaldua, 387).
Following my reading of The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, the chapter that really stuck out as I considered the ideas laid out in the excerpts from Gloria Anzaldua was “Alicia & I Talking on Edna’s Steps.” As I consider this idea of la mestiza, this mixing of race(s), and the women that identify with this ideology I can not imagine the immense amount of confusion and struggle to understand what actually makes up their self-identity. The question of “What are you?” or “Who are you?” seem such simple conjectures to those around us but to have to deal with multiple and opposing multi-cultural values and beliefs would leave anyone’s head spinning. There is a term in Psychology known as “cognitive dissonance.” This theory suggests that when a person is confronted with two opposing viewpoints discomfort and tension are the result. In many cases due to this confliction, many “freeze up.” They become almost immobilized with indecision and therefore can become very stuck.
This resonated throughout my reading of The House on Mango Street as I considered the life of the main character, a young girl named Esperanza who at the beginning of the novel seems to be not much older than 12 years of age. The cognitive dissonance she feels seems to extend itself throughout much of the book and her life as a young Chicana (Mexican-American) girl.
The House on Mango Streetis a perfect example of the intersectionality that is prominent in so many of our lives as women and especially for women other than the color “White.” The idea of one’s family, “home,” and culture weighed heavy on my mind as I read Esperanza’s story. In the chapter, “Alicia & I Talking on Edna’s Steps,” Esperanza and Alicia talk about Esperanza “not having a house.”
“No, this isn’t my house I say and shake my head as if shaking could undo the year I’ve lived there. I don’t belong. I don’t ever want to come from here. You have a home, Alicia, and one day you’ll go there, to a town you remember, but me I never had a house, not even a photograph…only one I dream of. No, Alicia says. Like it or not you are Mango Street, and one day you’ll come back too. Not me. Not until somebody makes it better. Who’s going to do it? The mayor? And the thought of the mayor coming to Mango Street makes me laugh out loud. Who’s going to do it? Not the mayor” (Cisneros, 131).
Esperanza is la mestiza. She is a contradiction but a combination of so many things. Anzaldua speaks about white culture attacking Mexican culture and attacking indigenous culture and in this attackthe threatened self blocks with a “counterstance” (Anzaldua, 387). It is possible and highly probable that in engaging in ths counterstance one will become stuck much like Esperanza did in attempting to deny parts of who she is.
Anzaldua seems to have come to a healing point or middle groud laid out for la mestiza.
“The new mestiza copes by developing a tolerance for contradictions, a tolerance for ambiguity. She learns to be an Indian in Mexican culture, to be Mexican from an Anglo point of view. She learns to juggle cultures. She has a plural personality, she operates in a pluralistic mode-nothing is thrust out, the good the bad the ugly, nothing rejected, nothing abandoned. Not noly does she sustain contradictions, she turns the ambivalence into something else” (Anzaldua, 388).
5:29 pm - 7-28-2011
What do you think the importance of having a house is to these girls? What does it signify, and how does that perhaps connect to larger feminist concerns? (Nice use of Anzaldua and Cisneros here!)
12:25 am - 7-29-2011
Well, one reason having a house could be important is because it is one of the main parts of the “American Dream,” which is one of the cultures that Anzaldua talks about having to straddle with.
10:21 am - 7-29-2011
@rdeanr,
At initial reading of The House on Mango Street, I believe most would sympathize with Esperanza for her desire to have a “nice” home and a stable life. This emphasis for stability whether emotional or financial is so stressed in American culture. Our American culture has continued to place more and more emphasis on our “worth” as a person by means of commercial goods or who has the most and the nicest things. Anyone not reflecting these ideals is not considered as valuable. The fact that Esperanza is poor and her house is not the dream house “with trees around it, a great big yard and grass growing without a fence” is a reflection of how she is not of real worth according to societies’ standards.
This leads me into my next point about the connection between the American Dream as Carly metioned below and the connection shared to one the major concerns many feminists share.
10:28 am - 7-29-2011
@ Carly,
I definitely agree with your initial analysis young girl’s idealization of the “American Dream.” It is through this glamorized ideal that we have sold so many young girls and women into believing that true happiness comes ONLY when you are a wife, mother, and have that picket fence surrounding your beautiful home. This idea leaves women, including myself, with the belief that without attaining this dream you will never reach real happiness or your full potential.
It is a hard cycle and system of beliefs to break free from as Anzaldua and even Sandra Cisnero’s character Esperanza have shown. Despite this denial of what seems so natural a desire within us, true happiness can only be attained when we realize that this “American Dream” or this desire for wholeness and happiness can not be bought or even given to us by another but that it is, in fact, found within us and is made up of all the things that encompass who we are.
8:31 pm - 7-29-2011
Bravo on the blog! I think you did an excellent job of examining sections of The House on Mango Street. I can agree when you said this book “is a perfect example of the intersectionality that is prominent in so many of our lives as women and especially for women other than the color “White.”Being a woman of color I can relate to this novel a lot more than any other article or book we have read. In the urban community there is a sense of pride of accomplishments for every positive thing. I believe the quote home is where the heart is can relate so much to this novel. The main character was able to still establish a better lifestyle. But what I appreciated most is her love for her family and neighborhood. Even though she perceived to have the perfect lifestyle it was nothing without her family. Sometimes people forget about the true meaning of family values until it’s too late. Overall, I just thought this was an interesting book.
9:49 pm - 7-29-2011
I really like the points that you made about the book. In particular, the observations in the end stuck with me. Esperanza is the personification of la mestizo, yes. And she is conflicted, at times in denial of the whole aspect of her being. What I interpreted your conclusion and quote selection as that Esperanza is the trap la mestiza could fall into, at times self-loathing, always feeling a disconnect with a whole self-consciousness, cognitive dissonance you mention, yes?
I think though, that such a journey, merging these borderland identities into a single entity does come with conflict. But I don’t think that cognitive dissonance is the end being for Esperanza or the pioneers of la mestiza. At the end, I felt Esperanza had begun the path of self-acceptance, recognizing her community, people, and her place in it. I guess my question is do you think Esperanza’s journey we see is a good glimpse into a chance of resolving this cognitive dissonance that la mestiza’s could face? I feel as if there is an acceptance at the end, but I’m interested in your take. =]
8:58 am - 7-30-2011
@Cassy,
I appreciate your thoughts back on the blog! Perhaps where I was trying to go with the above was more of an unfinished thought. For me, during this chapter especially I felt like this was a prominent example of issues many mestizas may feel. This insecurity and at times rejection of themselves and all the things such as “home” that encompass who they are.
I do believe at the end of HOMS Esperanza finds resolution and begins to more clearly define who she is. She may not be completely resolved or without some “dissonance” remaining as I feel this is common for all of us but it comes as a part of that struggle to move along this journey or perhaps as you put it “merging these borderland identities into a single entity,”