english

"Someday I will have a best friend all my own.... Until then I am a red balloon, a balloon tied to an anchor."

"Boys & Girls" - the anchor is Mango Street and her sister, she wants to be free; she wants a friend (not just her family), leads her to be friends with Sally. lonely, trying to be free but weighed down by the sadness of being lonely. freeness to be able to talk to someone about her problems, which help in weighing her down

Them are dangerous, he says. You girls too young to be wearing shoes like that. Take them shoes off.

Esperanza and her friends are given high-heeled shoes to walk around town in. The attention from boys makes them feel like it's Christmas, but an event causes them to feel "tired of being beautiful" and not complain when the shoes get accidentally thrown away. = The event that made them feel this way was when the bum tries to kiss them and gives them too much attention. It scares them and they run away, having received too much attention from men.*High-heeled shoes are symbols of femininity and sexuality theyre not supposed to be wearing high heels bc it makes men feel a certain way. they will do something to put the girls in dange but the girls are blamed not the men, which takes away the girls confidence and shows how this is normal on mango street and its injustice

my great grandmother. i would've liked to have known her. a wild horse of a woman... she looked out the window her whole life, the way so many women sit their sadness on an elbow. i wonder if she made the best with what she got or was sorry because she couldn't be all the things she wanted to be. esperanza. i inherited her name but i don't want to inherit her place by the window

"My Name" - Doesn't want to be one of the women who are trapped by marriage (a powerless woman who watches life pass by) Many women in Esperanza's family who've come before her, including her grandmother, "sit their sadness on an elbow" as they stare out the window. = This means these women rest all of their sadness on their elbow, literally and figuratively, as it holds them up. They stare out the window wondering what their life could've been had they not gotten married. she wants more than her grandmother had, wanted to be all she couldn't

'you live there' there. i had to look to where she pointed- the third floor, the paint peeling, wooden bars papa had nailed on the windows so we wouldn't fall out. you live there? the way she said it made me feel like nothing. there. i lived theere

When Esperanza points to her house on Loomis St., a nun responds with, "You live there?" = This made Esperanza feel ashamed and defeated. After that, she vowes to have a house of her own that she is proud to point to. A real house.