The Life of Sandra Cisneros

            The research report topic I chose is the biography of Sandra Cisneros. I have always enjoyed her writing and wanted to know how she came about her creativity. There were many routes I could have taken with this subject. Yet, I just chose to research her life and her work. She is a fascinating writer with an interesting background.  She has a lot of similarities to my life, but unfortunately, I am not as great a writer as she is.  Sandra Cisneros grew up in a predominately Puerto Rican neighborhood in Chicago, Il.  The neighborhood of Humboldt Park is the area she describes in The House on Mango Street.  Her mother was a U.S. citizen who married her Mexican father.  Sandra’s grandfather on her maternal side arrived at Chicago to work for the railroad there.  He saved enough money to send for his wife and children.  This is how Sandra’s mother came to live in Chicago.  Sandra’s father left Mexico because he was afraid to return to his father’s home when he failed his college courses.  He just happened to be passing through Chicago when he met his future wife and decided to stay there.  Sandra grew up speaking to her father in Spanish and mother in English, like many Mexican American children have been known to do. The Cisneros family was constantly moving from apartment to apartment because her father always took them back to Mexico months at a time.  They would return to Chicago searching for new place to live till finally they bought a house.  It was not the house that Sandra dreamed of though.

            Sandra is the only daughter our of  7 children.  Her mother did have another daughter that died in infancy.  This left Sandra as the only girl and often alone.    Her brothers all paired up, but she remained the odd one out.  Her mother though pushed Sandra into reading and got her a library card at a very young age.  Sandra believes that her mother “capitalized on her abilities by making Cisneros the benefactor of her intellectual and literary dreams and accomplishments”(Ganz 22).  Sandra’s mother never forced her to learn to cook the way many Mexican mothers had at that time.  Sandra went on to college and got into a workshop in University of Iowa.  She claimed she had felt out of place because she was the only Mexican American in the class. She even stopped writing for a year.  She finally made an observation that she has some experiences to write about that the other students couldn’t write about because of her heritage.  She decided to use this in her writing and came up with some of the stories in The House on Mango Street.

            Sandra has written and published many works, but she is most widely known for The House on Mango Street.  She has published short stories and poetry.  Her book Loose Women did not receive great acclaim because it was mostly erotic poetry.  Cisneros states, “sex is forbidden by male society because that’s where our nuclear reactors are…”(Satz 3).  She decided after that to keep her poetry private and continue writing short stories and novels.  She has admitted to randomly selecting names for her stories from the telephone book.  She has also admitted that her stories come from her own experiences or experiences that have been told to her by other people.  This seems to give her work a more realistic feeling.  She has won many awards, but the one that has given her security is the MacArthur.  She states that she now feels like she can relax and not have to worry about her financial situations.

            Sandra Cisneros has now chosen her home in San Antonio, Texas.  She has recently caused havoc among the town because she painted her house purple.  Lowry writes, “though  [Cisneros] professes her love for San Antonio, she does not shrink from taking or giving offense” (2).  She admits to being a feminist activist and one important quote that describes herself by saying she is not anybodies wife nor anybodies mother.  She is proud to be single and does not concern herself with domestic matters.  Cisneros’ work is brilliant and imaginative.  Tompkins writes in her essay a quote that Cisneros “wanted to write stories that were a cross between poetry and prose…a collection which could be read at any random point without having any knowledge of what came before or after (3).  She accomplished this with The House on Mango Street.  I adore Sandra Cisneros and her work and I would love to see what else she publishes in the future.

                                                         Works Cited

Ganz, Robin. “Sandra Cisneros: Border Crossings and beyond.” MELUS 19.1 Spring 1994: 19-29.  20 April 2006 JSTOR Database from Neumann Library.

Lowry, Kathy. “The Purple Passion of Sandra Cisneros.” Texas Monthly v25 October 1997: 148-150.  20 April 2006 Wilson Web Database from Neumann Library.

Satz, Martha. “Returning to One’s House: An Interview with Sandra Cisneros.” Southwest Review v82 Spring 1997: 166-85.  20 April 2006 Wilson Web Database from Neumann Library.

Tompkins, Cynthia. “Sandra Cisneros.” Dictionary of Literary Biography v152 1995: 35-41. 20 April 2006 Galenet Database from Neumann Library.

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