The House on Mango Street

~Hari & Praveen

This week we discussed the book “The House on Mango Street,” written by Sandra Cisneros, a Mexican-American author and a person of color. She grew up in a Hispanic community. Her memoir consisting of several short stories, brings out several issues around race, sexuality, culture, economic inequality, and gender inequality. This book helped us draw parallels between the critical issues as depicted in the stories and the cause centric initiatives that Quilt supports with various foundations.

Esperanza’s memoir shows her life in a neighborhood where female continuously becomes a victim of molestation, regardless of any age. The chapters “Rafaela Who Drinks Coconut & Papaya Juice on Tuesdays” and “Linoleum Roses” highlights Gender inequality and Domestic Abuse – by locking girls at home and forcing them to do house chores.

In the chapter “First job,” Esperanza confronted her first harassment – When her co-worker, an old adult, misbehaved with her, she could not do defend herself. She never brought up the abusive incident and continued to do her duty as she was in dire straits. She hid her age to join the company. Poverty suppresses her power of ‘Right to Freedom of Expression’ in one way or another.

We took the Quilt case study on ‘How might we empower low-income college girls to change their future?’ which focuses on gender equality and women empowerment. In Quilt AI, we analyze 107000 digital content pieces and 68000 search impressions. If this memoir got posted in any social media, Esperanza and other (possible) victims could have been made aware and ‘nudged’ towards a more reliable and safer path of support.