Quote 81
My great-grandmother. I would've liked to have known her, a wild horse of a woman, so wild she wouldn't marry. (4.3)
Esperanza admires her great-grandmother's spirited personality. It seems she may have inherited more from her great-grandmother than her name.
Quote 82
Nenny and I don't look like sisters…not right away. Not the way you can tell with Rachel and Lucy who have the same fat popsicle lips like everybody else in their family. But me and Nenny, we are more alike than you would know. Our laughter for example. (7.1)
Esperanza seems to recognize that certain similarities are more important than physical ones. She seems to consider the fact that she and Nenny have the same laughter to be a stronger bond than if they looked alike.
Quote 83
Look at that house, I said, it looks like Mexico.
Rachel and Lucy look at me like I'm crazy, but before they can let out a laugh, Nenny says: Yes, that's Mexico all right. That's what I was thinking exactly. (7.4)
It means a lot to Esperanza that her little sister understands her perspective. Even though she's too young for Esperanza to consider her a friend, Nenny understands what Esperanza is trying to convey in a way that her friends do not.
Quote 84
If you don't get them you may turn into a man. Nenny says this and she believes it. She is this way because of her age.
That's right, I add before Lucy or Rachel can make fun of her. She is stupid alright, but she is my sister. (20.5)
This is classic older sibling syndrome – Esperanza picks on her little sister all the time, but she won't let anyone else make fun of Nenny.
Quote 85
Maybe she was embarrassed it took so many years. The kids who wanted to be kids instead of washing dishes and ironing their papa's shirts, and the husband who wanted a wife again.
And then she died, my aunt who listened to my poems. (23.19)
Soon after the death of her Papa's father, Esperanza experiences the death of a relative that she's closer to – her Aunt Lupe.
Quote 86
Every week Edna is screaming at somebody, and every week somebody has to move away […] But Ruthie lives here and Edna can't throw her out because Ruthie is her daughter.
Edna and Ruthie's relationship illustrates the idea of familial obligation – we're not sure whether Edna would kick Ruthie out if she could.
Quote 87
Until the way Sally tells it, he just went crazy, he just forgot he was her father between the buckle and the belt.
You're not my daughter, you're not my daughter. And then he broke into his hands. (37.6)
The violence that Sally's father does to her goes along with his disavowal of their relationship.
Quote 88
Someday I will have a best friend all my own. One I can tell my secrets to. One who will understand my jokes without my having to explain them. Until then I am a red balloon, a balloon tied to an anchor. (3.4)
The image of a red balloon tied to an anchor is a beautiful picture of Esperanza's loneliness, and a great example of Cisneros's poetic style.
Quote 89
Down, down Mango Street we go. Rachel, Lucy, me. Our new bicycle. Laughing the crooked ride back. (6.24)
For once, Esperanza doesn't seem lonely – the picture of her on a bicycle with Lucy and Rachel evokes a sense of real friendship.
Quote 90
My mama? You better not be saying that, Lucy Guerrero. You better not be talking like that…else you can say goodbye to being my friend forever. (16.30)
Just as easily as they're formed, Esperanza's friendships with her childhood friends can be easily broken. Esperanza acknowledges at the end of this chapter that she and her friends are "stupid" for fighting.
Quote 91
Ruthie, tall skinny lady with red lipstick and blue babushka, one blue sock and one green because she forgot, is the only grown-up we know who likes to play. (26.1)
Ruthie is Esperanza's first adult friend. Esperanza likes her because she's eccentric and not afraid to buck the expectations of friends and neighbors – in that way, she's a lot like Esperanza.
Quote 92
Cheryl, who is not your friend anymore, not since last Tuesday before Easter, not since the day you made her ear bleed, not since she called you that name and bit a hole in your arm and you looked as if you were going to cry and everyone was waiting and you didn't, you didn't, Sally, not since then, you don't have a best friend to lean against the schoolyard fence with, to laugh behind your hands at what the boys say. There is no one to lend you her hairbrush. (32.5)
Esperanza notices that Sally might have a vacancy in the best friend department.
Quote 93
And anyway I don't like carnivals. I went to be with you because you laugh on the tilt-a-whirl, you throw your head back and laugh. I hold your change, wave, count how many times you go by. […] I like to be with you, Sally. You're my friend. (39.2)
Esperanza's willingness to do something she doesn't like just to be with her friend Sally hints at a sort of unbalanced relationship. Sally gets to ride the tilt-a-whirl while Esperanza holds her change? How is that fair?
Quote 94
I like Alicia because once she gave me a little leather purse with the word GUADALAJARA stitched on it, which is home for Alicia, and one day she will go back there. But today she is listening to my sadness because I don't have a house. (42.1)
Is Esperanza's friendship with Alicia really based on the gift of a purse? Of course not. The purse signifies something deeper to Esperanza – it's a sign of the intimacy that exists between the two girls that allows Alicia to share a part of her home with the younger girl.
Quote 95
Friends and neighbors will say, What happened to that Esperanza? Where did she go with all those books and paper? Why did she march so far away?
They will not know I have gone away to come back. For the ones I left behind. For the ones who cannot out. (44.7)
Does friendship have anything to do with Esperanza's agreement to come back to Mango Street? Is she coming back for her friends, or is her return an expression of friendship?