The image displays my thematic motif of racism, because the girl is hiding who she really is due to the color of her skin. In our world today  racism almost seems accepted, we see it almost everywhere we go, even in our small city of White Oak. Today we don’t realy think of it as being offensive, even though that is exactly what it is. Where I see it most is at school, mostly in a joking sense, but what we see as a joke another person could see as very offensive. Most of the time when I see this going on I try to stop it, but I has become something of an unconcerning nature. In the photo the girl seems to be upset do to this, and often times we just seem to not care, but like I earlier stated, it can be taken very offensively. The photo I have chosen shows that most racism is done due to skin color, Which in reality it doesn’t make sense, because a person may be the exact same as you, but they are just a different color. Altogether my thematic motif of racism is best explained by this picture shot by Shutterstock photography found on google Images.

“That’s what you call a house, it looks more like a shack,” explained my friend Jake when I showed him where I live.

“It’s actually not that bad,”

I explained to my astonished friend. My name is Nathan, I live in a part of Detroit where many people would see in nightmares, with murders, shootings, and one of the highest crime rates in the whole city, but of course it’s where I call home. I moved here at the age of 7, I am now 15, of course living in this area of town does have some perks, because of the fact that everyone in my neighborhood is poor, I have nothing to prove to anyone, but there is one exception to this, I don’t go to school here. I go to school in one of the nicest schools in the city, the only reason for this, is that my father works here as a janitor. Being a poor kid in a wealthy school I’m often called things like,

“Trailer trash,” Because of the fact that I have been called this for a while it doesn’t bother me anymore. It hurt me for a while but it all got better when my father told me this one thing

“You have no one to impress but yourself,” this meant a lot to me growing up, but it is as I graduated high school valedictorian that I really got what that meant, it means that as long as you do everything in your power to get where you want to go, you will eventually get there.

The quote that I believe has the most meaning is, “People who live on hills sleep so close to the stars they forget those of us who live too much on earth.” What this quote means, is those that more or less have everything that they would ever need, forget about those that have nothing. Even though this quote may have many different meanings, I believe this is the point that Cisneros was trying to get at, but I believe another point just equal that she was trying to get at, is those who do nothing but dream, have trouble facing reality. This could strongly relate to Esperanza, because she is always dreaming about a place far from Mango Street, that she sometimes has trouble accepting her reality. The first definition also relates to her, because in one of the last vignettes she talks about how the mayor wouldn’t step foot on Mango Street, like the quote states, the mayor would be sleeping on hills while Mango Street is living on earth. There are many ways that this quote could be taken, but I strongly believe that this is what Cisneros was truly trying to get at. I believe that this is the strongest quote in the book due to the fact that it can relate to not only Esperanza, but also to us.

Dear Esperanza,

I want to start off by telling you that the choices that you made at the beginning of the novel were very dumb, for example whenever you got in the Cadillac with Louie and his cousins, could you not make the connection that a young boy in a not so great neighborhood would have a nice car? I mean              figuring that one out wasn’t exactly rocket science, but of course you were oblivious to the fact that he stole it. Another dumb thing that you didn’t think anything of at the time, was the Tarzan swinging competition. In what way would that ever have been a good idea? Along with all the dumb things that you did, there were also many things that you did right, for example when Rachel and Lucy were making fun of Nenny for being a dumb little girl, you defended her, exactly what an older sibling is meant to do. Another thing that I admire about you, is that you were always thinking about a better place, like your own house not on Mango Street. Through thinking like you did you were able to overcome many obstacles and get to the place that you wanted to be, which is another thing for me to be admirable of.  Overall, you were a very interesting person tom read about,

Sincerely Tyler

The vignette “Hips,” symbolizes the innocence of the children, in the sense that they are still young talking about things that are far beyond their age. For example, Rachel describes hips as being good for propping babies on. This example that Rachel describes is something that a mother would do only further maintaining the fact that, Esperanza and her friends are talking about things that are far beyond their current age. Further building onto the symbolism of innocence in this vignette, Nenny believes that without hips, they would turn onto men. Whilst talking about these grown up subjects, the girls are dancing while jumping robe, furthering the fact that they in fact are too young to understand what they are actually talking about. Along with innocence, Cisneros also displays the literary device of characterization, when Esperanza becomes embarrassed by the way that her sister acts. Throughout much of the book Esperanza seems to dislike her sister, but in this vignette she seems to be defending her sister from her friend’s comments, this tells us that she in fact does love her sister and cares about her feelings. Through the use of symbolism and characterization, Cisneros displays areas of the novel, where Esperanza grows in areas that she lacked at the beginning.

Curve Ball
“Watch for the curve ball,” my coach shouted from the dugout to the right of me. I have always had a hard time hitting anything but a fastball, but this time it felt right, I was about to make something happen. As the pitcher wound up to pitch, a thousand thoughts were flashing through my mind,
“what if I strike out, what if I get hit,” it also didn’t help that we were down a run with a guy on third in the bottom of the 9th, so the pressure was on me to drive in this winning run.
“Strike one,” the umpire yelled as the ball whizzed past me into the catchers glove behind the plate.
“Watch the pitcher, do not take your eyes off of the ball,” spat my coach as he seemed to be getting anxious to get the winning run in. After all if we lose this game our season was over, but if we win, we ,might just go to the finals, and maybe win it all. As the pitcher got ready to throw his second pitch to me, I was able to clearly see that the next pitch thrown to me would be a curve ball, all I had to do is sit back and watch for thee break.
“Foul ball,” called the umpire loud and quickly. That makes two strikes, anything over the plate I need to hit, I thought in my adrenaline pumped mind.
“ If I can just get this hit,” I murmured to myself, watching the coach for the next call. As the pitcher wound up for once another pitch I once again saw the circle indicating that he was about to throw another curve ball. Before I knew it, I saw the break on the ball, and smashed it to the gap between right and center field, allowing the winning run to come in. From the bleachers and the dugout I could here the parents, and my coach screaming,
“We did it, we are moving on.”
After that at bat, hitting a curve ball came natural to me, I no longer had to struggle to see where it was going, I just made a prediction and hit the ball. That was the first moment that I really felt like I had achieved something, the first time that I didn’t disappoint someone, well except the other team,but that is okay with me.

My best friend is one of the first people I met when I moved to White Oak in the 4th grade, he is about my height with brown blonde hair, and he is one I would most consider to be my brother from another mother. Tyler Bly although probably not the best person to hang around, has always been there for me and has always had my back, even though he says when we first met he thought I would end up being a serial killer. When we were younger, every day after school we would adventure into the woods doing anything that looked or sounded fun, but thinking back most of the things we did were very dangerous things to do, for example we created a bridge made of two by fours taped together hanging over about a 8 foot drop. Once we made the bridge we thought that it would be a good idea to test the durability by sending three people to bounce on it, about three seconds later I hear Cody, Garrett, and Tyler plummet into the creek, we were lucky that none of them were hurt other than a few scrapes and bruises. Now that we know better, we often think something through before we do it, well sometimes, I mean we are still young, if I could go back and change any of it, I don’t think that I would. Although Tyler is my best friend, they are all considered family to me, I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

In the living room of our medium sized brick house, my parents and my sister and two brothers would all come together as a family to watch a movie or, to play a game. We would play games like Taboo, poker,or any game that sounded fun at the time. Most of the time the game usually ended in an argument, centered around my brother Garrett, because, “his luck is terrible,” or “ we get all the easy cards,” when it gets to that point, my mother feels its best just to end the game. The same goes when we have movie night, with slightly less complaining, we pick a movie that looks interesting, and we watch it usually until our parents are asleep, after they are asleep we usually just go to our rooms and do our own thing.139 Along with many family arguments over games, and what movie we want to watch, we have also had many good moments in the living room of that house, for example each year for Christmas we would get up early in the morning to a tree full of presents, this was always a welcome sight to a small child like me or my other siblings. We always knew when we were being called into the living room, we were going to spend time with family, I always looked forward to these moments even when we were all in an argument I never really minded, I just knew I was spending time with the people I love.

About four years ago, when I was in Arizona on vacation with my grandparents, without my knowing my grandfather bought me a gift to keep as a memory of him. It was a 4 inch tall and two inch wide glass rectangle with an Indian chief in the middle, not only was it a gift but it was also a symbol of my family heritage. My grandfather on my father’s side was a half-blood Cherokee, which makes me about 1/6th, with the added blood from my grandfather on my mother’s side. When I first got it, I honestly didn’t think much of it, but now that I am older I realize what it actually means. It means that even when my grandfather is no longer alive, I can always look at this glass object and remember everything good that I have ever done with him. My grandparents are some of the people that I love most in the world, I honestly don’t know what I would do without them. Every time I look at the heavy glass object sitting on a wooden dresser that he also made, along with my grandfather it also makes me think about all of the places that we have gone together , for example north Carolina, Washington D.C., and my favorite Georgia. For however long the object will last it will help me further in remembering all that my grandparents do for me and how much they love me.