Esperanza Rising is about a young girl named Esperanza that was born into a privileged family. Esperanza lives a fine life with beautiful clothes and dolls on a ranch that has gorgeous roses on it. In the beginning of the story she and her family seem to have a close relationship, all intertwined within each other. Her father Sixto is portrayed as a kind man that looks out for his family and loves his homeland. Her mother Ramona is portrayed as a dignified woman that likes to cook and throw parties. There is also Abuelita the grandmother who is portrayed as all knowing and she totally adores Esperanza.
Esperanza’s parents are extremely giving to Alfonso and Hortensia the couple that works for them. There is a relationship there that is deeper than it looks. Alfonso and Hortensia are deeply devoted to Esperanza and her parents. Their son Miguel is also very connected to Esperanza, for even at a young age she said she was going to marry him. Pam Munoz Ryan gives us a feeling of contentment and love that this family and extended family share on the Rancho de las Rosas.
The way this book begins you would think of it as a fairytale world for a girl and her family that seems as if it will never end. Then, after her father is tragically killed Esperanza has to totally redefine her entire life as she loses everything that she has ever known. When her uncles show up they are mean, soulless creatures that only want to take over her land and take her mother as well. These men are depicted as ruthless and cruel and they will not stop at anything to get what they want. They even burn down Esperanza’s house and threaten to send her away to boarding school. The uncles’ behavior is completely oppressive and in the beginning of the story they have total control over Ramona and Esperanza.
Esperanza’s mother must come up with a plan to escape from the tyranny of the uncles. With the help of Alfonso and Hortensia, Ramona and Esperanza are able to sneak out of Aguacalientes and off to California to live and to work with Alfonso’s cousin Juan. However, they must leave Abuelita behind because she been hurt and can’t travel. When they arrive in California and see how the Mexican families live it is very surprising. They living conditions are poor and there are absolutely no amenities like Esperanza had at home. She and her mother have to share a bed and they live in a little cabin. Her family has now changed and Esperanza, Ramona, Hortensia, Alfonso, Miguel, as well as Juan, Josefina, Isabel, and the babies are all one big family. They are all concerned about one thing and that is doing whatever it takes to keep the family with a roof over their heads and food on the table.
Esperanza is not willing to admit that she is no longer rich. She continues to hang on to the doll that her father gave her and she thinks that she will be able to go back to her old life very soon. When she finds out that she has to take care two babies and sweep a platform while the adults go to work she has a meeting with reality. She has never had to take care of anybody, not even her own self. Ramona must also go to work with Hortensia and the other women. The women in the story go to pack fruits in the sheds and the men pick the fruit in the fields. Miguel must also look for work with the railroad and even though he is a skilled mechanic he is passed by for good jobs because of his ethnicity.
The main character of this story is definitely Esperanza and the main emphasis is how she deals with her plight of being rich and becoming penniless. To add to her pain, her mother becomes very ill after a big dust storm hits the area. Ramona becomes weak and depressed and she must be hospitalized. Here is where we see Esperanza step up and take on the role of responsibility for herself and her mother. Her motivation is that she will work with the women make money so she can bring Abuelita to California to help her mother get better.
Through working and achieving a sense of her own self, Esperanza begins to see the world in a realistic view. She can see that justice is not always given, but that each person can make a difference in his or her own way. I believe that Esperanza accomplishes more than she ever dreamed of. Yes, she may miss her old life but she has built a new one and that one includes her being able to be with Miguel on a level of equality which she would have never had before back in Aguacalientes.
This story is very inspiring and also wonderfully written. Esperanza is a great role model and I think children could identify with her and want to overcome obstacles as she did. When reading the book children might feel sad or sorry for her because so many awful things happen to her. However the bad things that did happen like the death of her father, being driven out of her homeland, leaving Abuelita behind, her mother’s illness, working in the sheds, being looked down upon by others are all experiences that help Esperanza to grow and learn about herself.
Pam Munoz Ryan wrote this book from stories she had heard about the life of her own grandmother when she was a young girl. She mentioned in the Author’s Note that her grandmother had told about when she grew up in Mexico and how she had been rich and then had to move to California to work on a farm camp. Esperanza’s story is fictional, but Ms. Ryan took some of the names and places from her grandmother’s childhood. The main point is that the author is familiar with this time period called the “Mexican Repatriation” and wanted to write about it because there is not much literature that focuses on Mexicans and Mexican-Americans. This story had a very balanced approach because it told of how some families immigrated to the U.S. and how they lived in camps and worked in the fields.
Esperanza Rising was published in 2000. Ms. Ryan did a wonderful job relating the way that a young woman would have to acclimate from living a privileged life to having to start life all over again. She did not use any loaded words and I think she portrayed the Mexican culture in an extremely dignified and elegant way. The way that she portrayed the strength of the characters and their love for one another was really intense. I also thought that there was a great intensity with many of the thoughtful things that the characters did like when Alfonso and Miguel replanted the roses outside the cabin in California. That was such a sweet and touching thing to do. When Miguel secretly took off to Mexico to get Abuelita and bring her back to California I knew that there was a bond between he and Esperanza that could never be broken no matter what. These were acts of love that really spoke to me in this story.
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