The document is a research paper about the book "The House on Mango Street" by Sandra Cisneros and how it relates to the research study "Reconstructing Latino Identity" by Torres and Magolda. The paper provides a summary of the book, which follows a young Latina girl named Esperanza growing up in Chicago and her experiences facing stereotypes. It also summarizes the research study, which examined how Latino college students' cognitive development and ethnic identities changed over time. The paper then compares themes between the book and research study, such as exploring cultural stereotypes and identities. It analyzes how characters and subjects in both grappled with stereotypes and sought approval from others to develop their own identities

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The House on Mango Street: Latino/a Development
Scott Fluhrer
October 2014

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The House on Mango Street: Latino/a Development
Our society has created stereotypes for ethnic and racial groups around the world.
The individuals that cause those stereotypes to flourish are the ones that would rather see
themselves succeed rather than let the people that need help get just a little help. They
create those stereotypes to allow themselves to make gains. The stereotypes started
decades ago and have become more present as the years go on. There are groups working
to abolish those stereotypes and groups to make our society better for everyone. Each
group of people needs a driving force to push them to the forefront of the racial war and
to push them through it.
The book “The House on Mango Street” by Sandra Cisneros creates an amazing
identity for a young female growing up in a Hispanic community and the struggles and
indifference she faced while growing up. This book creates contains many different
stories and observations made by the main character that move the book along. This book
hits many aspects of the stereotypes that have been imprinted on females and on different
races throughout society.
In this paper a discussion on the book mentioned above will coincide with the
article by Torres and Magolda (2004) entitled Reconstructing Latino Identity: The
Influence of Cognitive Development on the Ethnic Identity Process of Latino Students.
There will be comparison made between the articles and book and why those
comparisons are being made. There will also be discussion about why this book was
chosen for this paper and why it is being compared it to this article. This paper will also
discuss the book in detail and how it was written. This paper will also discuss how
Torres and Magolda developed their article and theory on the Latino/a community.

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Book Summary
The book “The House on Mango Street” written by Sandra Cisneros is centered
on a young girl named Esperanza; she is a Mexican- American girl who is 12 years old.
This book is written in a series of short stories that are observations made by the main
character Esperanza. The book starts off by her family moving to a house on Mango
Street in a Hispanic neighborhood in Chicago. This book shows the growth of Esperanza
throughout the year, from her making friends to talking about all her neighbors as well as
many other big experiences that Esperanza goes through that many young children also
go through in their childhood.
Esperanza becomes friends with neighbor’s girls and she has many different
adventures with them. Those adventures include buying a bike, exploring a junk shop and
even walking around their neighborhood in heels. All the girls are growing throughout
the book and they are all on the brink of hitting full on puberty, she starts to tell more
stories about the older women in her neighborhood and is growing up, this is especially
prevalent after the death of two family members. After the many experiences that she is
involved in and especially her sexual assault, Esperanza is determined to leave Mango
Street to get the house she has dreamed of. She wants to leave but comes to the
realization that she will never fully be able to leave Mango Street because she still has
loved ones that live on Mango Street. The book ends with a much-matured Esperanza and
one that is determined the put distance between her and she does that by writing until she
can physically leave.
ResearchSummary

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Torres and Magolda developed a study, which is titled Reconstructing Latino
Identity: The Influence of Cognitive Development on the Ethnic Identity Process of Latino
Students. This study looked to find out how student’s cognitive abilities changed as
Latino/a students. This was a qualitative longitudinal study that used data from 28
different students from community, private and public four-year universities. The study
addressed how ethnic identity is influenced by the cognitive development of Latino
college students. Torres’ main goal for this study was to expand previous research while
identifying the root of negative messages about ethnicity and how to reconstruct those
images into positive images (REFERENCE) Torres and Magolda created this to
advocate that educators create teachable moments where students’ must rethink their own
views and form a greater understanding of their culture (Torres and Magolda 2004).
The researchers used critical moments to illustrate their change through their
college years. The two main individuals that this research article focused on were Sagi
and Angelica, they were found to have gone through the most critical points over this
study. Each individual had differnet experiences that caused each female to hit those
critical points but both went through the same cognitive development. The main students
in this research and the other students in this research had many changes because many of
them started out with stereotyping themselves but as they went through this research they
grew and discovered who they were and who they wanted to be.
The House on Mango Street vs. Torres and Magolda
There are many aspects of “The House on Mango Street” and the research done
by Torres and Magolda that coincide with each other. The Latino culture has been a
culture that has been under researched but the culture contains many aspects we could all

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learn from. Torres and Magolda did a longitudinal study to develop theory on how Latino
students cognitive development grows as college students (Torres and Magolda 2004).
This book and research go hand in hand, because as the main character of the book is
growing up she goes through many aspects of the research that Torres and Magolda have
discovered in their research.
The first source of comparison that was found in the book and to Torres and
Magolda’s research was in the chapter titled Hairs(Cisneros pg. 6), this looks at the
different hair that each person in the family has. This chapter discusses that everyone is
different, they may all be from the same family but we are all going to have differences
no matter what. Just like the research, none of the individuals were the same but they all
went through the same types of things, from the negative stereotypes to feeling like they
were on a different level from the people around them. We are all different and look up to
the people that have the things that we want. Just like Esperanza who compared her
mother’s hair to being her safe spot. We all have that place that we feel the most
comfortable and never want to leave, but in order for us to grow that self is central to
knowledge construction (Torres and Magolda 2004)(Cisneros 1989).
Another comparison that was discovered within “The House on Mango Street”
and the research done by Torres and Magolda was in the chapter titled My
Name(Cisneros pg. 10). Esperanza is discussing what her name means and how others
perceive her name. She sees her name as a burden to the people around her and wants
people to call her by a different name. She knows she got her name from her grandmother
who never forgave her grandfather for carrying her off, but she hates the way people say
it at school.

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This chapter can be compared to the research study when Sagi is discussing her
accent, she sees her accent as a burden and that it makes her look like less of a person
around her classmates. She thinks her accent makes her like an insubordinate and she
feels like she will look less educated if she talks with others around her because of her
accent. This is good to compare to the chapter because they are both looking at a part of
their Latino culture as a burden to the people around them.
Sagi discovers that when she does open up to the people around her it is actually
helpful for herself to become open when she talks more. She needed a push by an
authority figure and she got that from Torres. Esperanza doesn’t have that figure in her
life yet, but if she got that push to show people that her name means hope and it is
important people would see her for who she wants to be not for who she thinks people
see her as.
The next comparison that was found between these two documents was in the
chapter titled A Rice Sandwich (Cisneros pg. 43), when comparing this with Torres and
Magolda’s theory, this part of the book goes well with the theory because Esperanza
wants to eat with all the kids in the canteen because she thinks it will be much better than
having to go home everyday, she thinks of many excuses and her mother finally lets her
go eat in the canteen. This goes well with the theory because she is trying to fit in better
with the students in her school and she think if she stays to eat at school people will think
she is one of the cool kids.
She believes that people that go home to eat are missing out on something. Torres
and Magolda (2004) stated that they relied on external authorities to define their beliefs
making them vulnerable to ethnic stereotypes. This is especially prevalent in this chapter

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because as she does rely on the authority figures in her life, she went against them and it
did not turn out well for her (pg. 343). Torres and Magolda (2004) also stated that there
was a need for the participants to have approval from others to gain an identity of their
own. This statement is right in line with this chapter, this is exactly what Esperanza is
trying to do, she needs the approval of her peers, and she does this by trying to do what
another majority is doing.
Torres and Magolda (2004) discuss the idea of cognitive dissonance; this allowed
many of the participants to abandon their external formulas. This allowed for the students
to realize that they were dealing with two contradictory events in their life. In the book
“The House on Mango Street” I found there to be a good example of cognitive
dissonance to occur from the chapters What Sally Said through the chapter Red Clowns.
In the first chapter Sally is punished by her father for talking to girls, then in the next
chapter Sally is seen by Esperanza to be in trouble in a garden but keeps telling
Esperanza to go away, Sally is talking with boys and kissing them to get her keys back
and seems to like it. The next chapter is when some boys at the carnival sexually assault
Esperanza, it’s a contradictory thing for Esperanza because it was nothing like what Sally
said it was or what the magazines said.
These chapters fit well with cognitive dissonance because she has to deal with
two contradictory things that occur in her life. It helps her grow to who she is now
because she had to deal with such a traumatic experience that she didn’t know would be
happening like that or then. This resulted in many things changing within the books
format, many older individuals were mentioned in the book rather than her friends and

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children like earlier in the book. She has to wrap her mind around that she has now grown
up way to fast.
Conclusion
Throughout this book Esperanza has grown into her own body and mind. She has
developed her cognitive capabilities as well as learned from the people around her. This
entire book coincides well with Torres and Magolda’s research and theory, throughout
the book there are developments of complex ways of thinking which helped Esperanza
decrease her susceptibility to stereotype vulnerability and creating positive images of
ethnicity (Torres & Magolda 2004). Esperanza has grown up so much in a single year.
She went through many different life events and witnessed many other people going
through hardships and big life events.
I found there to be many different aspects of Esperanza’s life that change daily.
She gets new friends and she loses friends. She discovers knew places and knew wonders
in her life. Throughout the year of this book you watch her grow and figure out her life as
a young Latino girl in Chicago. There are many aspect of this book that coincide with
many aspects of the individuals throughout Torres and Magoldas study. Esperanza has to
discover who she is and experience huge hardships in order for her to discover who she
is. Torres and Magolda state that “engaging students in the cognitive, intrapersonal, and
interpersonal dimensions simultaneously has the potential to promote their ethnic identity
development during college” (Torres & Magolda 2004). Students and individuals such as
Esperanza need to experience things like the quote states in order to grow and figure out
who they are as a person.

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Torres and Magolda have developed a theory and put that theory to research. The
researchers have found that there are many aspects of the Latino lifestyle have been under
researched and figured out what types of things cause development in a Latino/a’s life.
Throughout the book “The House on Mango Street” you see where different people are
coming from and what people in their culture are dealing with.
In conclusion, there needs to be more research done on the Latino community,
without more research the Latin community will be under served for even longer.
Throughout the research and the book you experience many different individuals and
figure out that they work well together when they get compared. The book hits many
points that hit at all the aspects of the theory that was developed by Torres and Magolda.
When you compare the two documents you can see the differences but you can also see
the large similarities throughout.

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References
http://collegestudentdeveltheory.blogspot.com/2010/11/torress-model-of-hispanic-
identity.html
https://blackboard.stthomas.edu/courses/1/201440EDLD855-
01/content/_1757766_1/Torres%2C%20Baxter%20Magolda.pdf