Sunday, March 9, 2014

My Name by Sandra Cisneros


My Name by Sandra Cisneros


[Sandra+Cisneros.jpg]The author Sandra Cisneros discusses what she doesn’t like about her real name, Esperanza.  “In English, my name means hope.  In Spanish, it means too many letters.  It means sadness, it means waiting.” She has taken a positive word, hope, and given it three descriptions that are negative. The first, “too many letters,” is a description of the word as it is written. She is frustrated by the physical difficulty of her name, which sets her apart from others. She has taken a positive word, hope, and given it three descriptions that are negative. The first, “too many letters,” the second “relation” with her grandparents, and lastly, it’s too complicated for school.

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.
 
                                                          My Name by Sandra Cisneros

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.

 It was my great-grandmother’s name and now it is mine. She was a horse woman too, born like me in the Chinese year of the horse – which is supposed to be bad luck if you’re born female-but I think this is a Chinese lie because the Chinese, like the Mexican, don’t like their women strong.

 My great-grandmother. I would’ve liked to have known her, 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. Just like that, as if she were a fancy chandelier. That’s the way he did it.

 And the story goes she never forgave him. 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 she sorry because she couldn’t be all the things she wanted to be. Esperanza. I have inherited her name, but don’t want to inherit her place by the window.

 At school they say my name funny as if the syllables were made out of tin and hurt the roof of your mouth. But in Spanish my name is made out of a softer something, like silver, not quite as thick as sister’s name-Magdalena-which is uglier than mine. Magdalena who at least can come home and become Nenny. But I am always Esperanza.

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