The House on Mango Street(excerpt)
In English my name means hope.In Spanish it means too many letters.It means sadness，and 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，songs like sobbing.
It was my greatgrandmother's name and now it is mine.She was a horse woman too，born like me in the Chinese year of 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 Mexicans，don't like their women strong.
My greatgrandmother，I would have liked to have known her，a wild horse of a woman，so wild she wouldn't marry.Until my greatgrandfather threw a sack over her head and carried her off.Just that，as if she were a fancy chandelier(枝形吊灯)．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 she was sad because she couldn't be all the things she wanted to be.Esperanza.I have inherited her name，but I 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.
I would like to baptize myself under a new name，a name more like the real me，the one nobody see.Esperanza as Lasiandra or Maritza or Zeze the X．Yes，something like Zeze the X will do.
