Sandra Cisneros

Sandra Cisneros’ novels, essays, poetry, and social work have made her a key figure in feminist and Chicana literature. Her debut novel, The House on Mango Street (1984), is required reading in schools across the country and was one of the first works by a Chicana author to receive widespread acclaim.

Sandra Cisneros: Biography

Sandra Cisneros' life experiences as a Chicana woman have greatly influenced her work as a writer.

Early life

Sandra Cisneros was born in Chicago on December 20, 1954. Her father, Alfredo Cisneros de Moral, was a Mexican man who came to the United States in his youth and eventually settled into a career as an upholsterer. Cisneros’ mother, Elvira Cordero Anguiano, was Mexican-American and the only female role model for her young daughter.

Sandra Cisneros was born in Chicago. Pixabay.

Cisneros grew up in a large family; she was the third of seven children and the only daughter. Surrounded by brothers, Cisneros often felt isolated. Her family moved back and forth throughout her childhood between the United States and Mexico, further contributing to her feelings of isolation and uprootedness. From an early age, Cisneros combated this isolation by taking refuge in books.

When Cisneros was eleven years old, her family finally purchased their own home in Chicago, in the predominantly Puerto Rican neighborhood of Humboldt Park, and Cisneros attended high school at the nearby Josephinum Academy.

The family’s Humboldt Park home would later become the inspiration for Cisneros’ first novel, The House on Mango Street (1984).

Josephinum Academy was an all-girls Catholic school, and this was where Cisneros began to write. One of her teachers was particularly supportive and encouraged Cisneros’ early attempts at poetry.

University

After high school, Cisneros attended Loyola University in Chicago and later earned an MFA in creative writing from the University of Iowa’s Writers’ Workshop.

During her time in the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Cisneros began to discover her own unique voice as a writer. As a Chicana woman who had grown up in poverty, Cisneros’ life experiences were much different from those of her generally more affluent classmates. For a long time, Cisneros had been ashamed of these differences, but she realized that she could use the experiences related to her class, race, and gender to explore topics that were too often marginalized.

In 1978, Cisneros graduated from the Iowa Writer’s Workshop and began to work as a teacher. Back in Chicago, Cisneros taught at the Latino Youth Alternative High School, a charter school for high school drop-outs, and continued writing on the side.

Literary career

In 1981, Cisneros was awarded a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. She used the money to go to Europe, where she completed the manuscript for her first novel, The House on Mango Street.

The House on Mango Street was published in 1984. The novel, which drew on Cisneros’ childhood in Chicago, was immediately successful. The House on Mango Street became an instant classic of Chicana literature and continues to be read in middle schools, high schools, and universities across the country.

In 1987, Cisneros’ first collection of poetry was published, My Wicked, Wicked Ways. Despite the success of her budding literary career, Cisneros still struggled to make ends meet. She continued to work as a teacher and arts administrator until she was awarded a second National Endowment for the Arts fellowship. This fellowship allowed Cisneros to complete the short story collection Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories (1991).

Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories was published by Random House, making Cisneros the first Chicana writer to be picked up by a major publishing house. This helped bring her work into the mainstream and resulted in more national recognition.

In 1995, Cisneros was awarded the prestigious MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, which enabled her to make writing her full-time occupation.

That same year, Cisneros founded the Macondo Writers Workshop, an association of writers who prioritize social responsibility and activism in their work. The Macondo Foundation hosts an annual event and awards and grants to applicable writers.

In 1999, Cisneros furthered her community outreach activities by starting the Alfredo Cisneros del Moral Foundation. The foundation, named for her father, supports the work of writers from, living in, or writing about Texas.

Sandra Cisneros lives in San Miguel de Allende. Pixabay.

Sandra Cisneros continues to write. She is a citizen of the United States and Mexico, and she lives in San Miguel de Allende, in central Mexico.

Sandra Cisneros: Books

Sandra Cisneros is well-known for her books, poems, and essays.

Novels

• The House on Mango Street (1984) is Cisneros’ debut novel and remains her best-known work. Comprised of forty-four short vignettes, The House on Mango Street is narrated by Esperanza, a twelve-year-old Chicana girl living in Chicago. The vignettes stretch over a year-long period as Esperanza begins her transition from childhood to adolescence. Much of the novel was inspired by Cisneros’ own childhood growing up in a Hispanic neighborhood of Chicago. The House on Mango Street recently celebrated its 25th anniversary and is considered a modern classic of American and Chicana literature.

• Cisneros’ other works of fiction are the novel Carmelo (2002), the illustrated story for adults Have You Seen Marie? (2012), the bilingual chapbook, Puro Amor (2018), the bilingual novela Martita, I Remember You/Martita, te recuerdo (2021). She has also published a few books for children, including Hairs/Pelitos (1994), and the Italian Bravo, Bruno (2011).

Short stories

• Sandra Cisneros’ short story collection Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories (1991) was her first book published by a major publishing house, bringing her more notoriety and financial success. The collection is divided into three parts, focusing on childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. The stories center Chicana women, unpacking stereotypes and gendered expectations that sometimes clash and compete in the intersection between Mexican and American culture.

Essays

• A House of My Own (2015) is Sandra Cisneros’ collection of personal essays. As a child growing up in a large family, Cisneros wished for her own house, a quiet refuge where she could read and write to her heart’s content. In this collection, Cisneros muses about the various places she has called home, significant moments in her life, and the artists and individuals who have inspired her work.

Sandra Cisneros: Poems

Like her novels, Cisneros’ poetry navigates themes including Chicana identity, sexuality and femininity, and the lives of working-class women. The poetry collection My Wicked, Wicked Ways (1987) was Cisneros’ second published work. Her other full-length poetry collection is called Loose Woman: Poems (1994). Cisneros also has a poetry chapbook titled Bad Boys (1980).

Sandra Cisneros: Key Themes and Quotes

There are many reoccurring themes in Sandra Cisneros’ work, including the construction of Chicana identity, bilingualism and biculturalism, and femininity and female sexuality.

Chicana identity

Chicana characters feature prominently in nearly all of Sandra Cisneros’ work. Her protagonists, for example, Esperanza, from The House on Mango Street, are reflections of Cisneros’ own experiences as a Chicana woman and the experiences of the women around her: her friends, family, and neighbors. Much of her work explores the expectations that both Mexican and American culture place on women and how Chicana identity is constructed in relation to these gender roles.

Bilingualism and biculturalism

Much of Sandra Cisneros work explores the borderlands of biculturalism and bilingualism. Growing up and traveling between Mexico and the United States, Cisneros often felt that she didn’t belong in either culture. Biculturalism is an essential part of Chicana identity, and Cisneros often explores how Mexican and American cultures combine and collide in her characters.

An important part of this is the use of the Spanish language in her work. Cisneros incorporates Spanish into her poems and novels, but she also plays with the relationship between the two languages, to create something new. For example, she uses Spanish sayings translated into English or phrasing or sentence structures that might be common to Spanish but unusual in English.

Sexuality and Femininity

Sexuality and femininity play an important role in Cisneros’ exploration of Chicana identity. Nearly all of Cisneros’ work centers around female characters who exist in a world where men define femininity and female sexuality. She explores how Chicana women navigate the expectations of traditional gender roles, how they break free from them and take charge of their own sexuality, or how they become disillusioned and broken down by the limits of a patriarchal society.

Sandra Cisneros: Awards and Achievements

• Sandra Cisneros has received two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, in 1981 and 1988
• The House on Mango Street was awarded the 1985 Before Columbus Foundation’s American Book Award.
• Cisneros’ short story collection Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories won several awards, including the 1991 PEN Center West Award for Best Fiction.
• Cisneros was awarded honorary degrees from several universities, including the State University of New York at Purchase (1993) and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2014).
• Cisneros was a 1995 MacArthur Fellow.
• In 2017, Cisneros was awarded one of twenty-five Ford Foundation Art of Change fellowships.