My Name by Sandra Cisneros
![[Sandra+Cisneros.jpg]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy2F26A8vKe5JBkbv3b-P_j8wFzQzB4z18YJkUpjFAvLEGuNLevMrwGG4KkOYe4rNurru3iP1-nKl6OSDruEwBms_vHW_YiPszgv2cyCqfuicwuFiQlPkJpBLtd2x7dkdlV91VFlTmcTfd/s320/Sandra+Cisneros.jpg)
She
was named after her great-grandmother who she didn’t know, but knew of
her. She was “a wild horse of a woman, so wild she wouldn’t marry until
my great-grandfather threw a sack over her head and carried her off. And
the story goes she never forgave him.” Yet, the author doesn’t
seem to relate to this aspect of her great-grandmother, lamenting how her
grandmother “looked out the window all her life, the way so many women sit
their sadness on an elbow.” It’s this picture the author relates to her
name.
Esperanza
does not like the way people pronounce her Spanish name at school and likes to
keep it whole - without a nickname - like her sister Magdalena (Nenny). She
secretly wants to baptize herself under a new name more suited to her private
personality, for she does not like the mumbled English sounding name of
Esperanza.
Consequently, the author did change her name to the one shown above.Esperanza's name just contributes to her sense of not belonging. Esperanza’s life is full of sadness and waiting. The teachers cannot pronounce her name in school. When she uses the word “baptize”, she is saying she wishes she could start over and create a new identity from. Consequently, the author wants to change her name to “a name more like the real me, the one nobody sees.”
I’ve always like the uniqueness of my name, especially the spelling of it. My mother told me that my dad choose my name, from the soap opera, “All my Children.” He was in love with the name Hailey Vonn as well as the actress, so he decided that his daughter was going to be called Hailey. All along, my father knew that my mom was going to have a baby girl. However, the doctors told my mother that I was going to be a boy. She had the name “Optimus” all ready to go. But, fate decided that I was going to be a girl. Thank God for my dad, because if not, my mother would’ve probably picked a very complicated name for a girl as well. As I grew up, I found more people who spelled their name just like mine, but not many. I still like it.
In
spite of their importance, though, most people know very little about names and
about the effects they have on us every day.
In English my names means hope. In Spanish it means too
many letters. It means sadness, it means waiting. It is like the number nine. A
muddy color. It is the Mexican records my father plays on Sunday mornings when
he is shaving, song like sobbing.
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