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| Book cover retrieved from author's website at https://www.pammunozryan.com/esperanza-rising/ |
Ryan, P.M. (2000). Esperanza rising. New York, NY: Scholastic Inc.
ISBN: 978-0-439-120425
Plot Summary
Esperanza Ortega lived a charmed life. The only child of a wealthy rancher in Mexico, Esperanza had everything she could ever want. But when tragedy strikes, Esperanza and her mother are forced to flee to the United States. Working in the fields all day while living in a Mexican labor camp in California isn’t at all how Esperanza imagined her life would turn out, but it is here that she learns how to start over. Set in California during the Great Depression, Esperanza Rising is a story about finding hope and beauty in trying times.
Characters
Ryan does a beautiful job of depicting the Latinx culture through her characters. She dispels the stereotype of Mexicans as poor and ignorant, showing the reader the wealth and beauty of Esperanza’s early childhood, filled with beautiful silk dresses and staff to wait on her hand and foot. Esperanza attended a top-notch private school and was very well educated. The fact that Esperanza has lived both a life of poverty and a life of wealth makes her relatable to a wide set of readers, helping a story that takes place in the distant past feel more accessible.
Esperanza’s mother and grandmother also add a culturally rich element to the story. Both women show an unending love for their dear Esperanza, and they are gentle and patient in their interactions with her. Esperanza’s mother had an opportunity to keep her life of luxury (albeit without Esperanza in the house), but she chose instead to keep her family together, fleeing under cover of darkness to America. This deep love and willingness to put family first is an important cultural value of the Latinx community. They remain hopeful in the hardest of times because of their deep trust in God. Throughout the story, these women emphasize two important values of the Latinx community: faith and family.
Setting
Ryan creates the perfect setting to support conversations about race and class. Set in the 1930s in a farm labor camp, Esperanza finds herself in a community of farm laborers, all living in row after row of small wooden cabins across from the fields. She compares these homes to the horse stalls on their ranch back in Mexico and is at first disgusted, but over time, she grows to love the sense of community in the camp. While the men (and many of the women) are away in the fields during the day, the women back at camp take on the chores and care for the children. The women share responsibilities, helping with childcare and keeping each other company. This structure builds a strong community. This neighborhood would’ve been the 1930s equivalent of a barrio, yet the author portrays it as a safe, strong community, in direct opposition to the stereotypes of a barrio.
The story is also careful to include accurate portrayals of the foods they would eat. Esperanza describes how the family would travel to a store farther from home to visit the grocer who treated them respectfully and carried the foods they ate back in Mexico: beans, flour for tamales, and chilis for salsa. In many scenes, the family eats meals of burritos and fresh fruit together, and Esperanza mentions her favorite treat in Mexico: coconut, lime, and papaya salad. These examples of foods are culturally authentic and serve to add depth to the story.
Theme
The theme of this story is the importance of family. Every decision, every action, every conversation revolves around family. Esperanza and her mother left Mexico to keep their family together, and later Esperanza goes to work in the fields to help support her family and bring her grandmother to the States. When Esperanza’s grandmother wasn’t able to travel with them to the United STates, both Esperanza and her mother long for abuelita to join them, especially when Esperanza’s mother gets sick. And in the end, when her grandmother does come, Esperanza’s heart overflows with joy - not because her financial situation or her living situation or her social status has changed, but because her family is together with her. And at this moment, Esperanza realizes she has all the riches a girl could ever need in the love of her family. This theme is authentic to Latinx culture as it accurately reflects the importance of family and friendship within the culture.
Cultural Markers
One way that indicates the accuracy of Esperanza Rising is the background of the author. Pat Munoz Ryan includes an editor’s note in the backmatter of the story, explaining the research that went into creating the novel. Esperanza Ortega was modeled after Ryan’s own grandmother of the same name, who really did leave a wealthy ranch in Mexico to immigrate to farm labor camps in California. Ryan was able to accurately portray Mexican culture because it is her culture as well.
The way that the author intermingles English and Spanish phrases is very carefully done. While the story and dialogue is primarily written in English, it is assumed that the characters were speaking Spanish, as the story takes place in both Mexico and a Mexican immigrant neighborhood.
Connections/Activities
The back matter of some editions of the book contain bonus pages with a biography of the author, a “Q & A” with the author, and activities related to the story. These activities range from recipes for the Jamaica punch (enjoyed by the field workers at the Saturday night fiesta), how-tos for making yarn dolls like Esperanza’s mother made, and writing prompts. These are all good connections to the story.
To add authenticity, the Library of Congress has an online collection of black and white photos from the 1930s depicting the life of migrant workers. Viewing and discussing these photos would help children connect what happened on the pages of the book to what happened in history.
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| Homes of Mexican field workers, Imperial Valley, California. |
Students can view these photos at https://www.loc.gov/collections/fsa-owi-black-and-white-negatives/?fa=location:california%7Csubject:migrants
References:
Lange, D. (Photographer). (1935). The Slums of Brawley: Homes of Mexican field workers, Imperial Valley, California [digital image]. Retrieved from https://www.loc.gov/item/2017759758/
Sewalt, S. (2016, February 28). Esperanza Rising book trailer [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMB_bJRmxaM
Sewalt, S. (2016, February 28). Esperanza Rising book trailer [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMB_bJRmxaM
Follow the links below for more of my Latinx book reviews:
The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo
Niño Wrestles the World by Yuyi Morales
Funny Bones by Duncan Tonatiuh