Abused Women and Children's Awareness Day 2024 is on Sunday, June 9, 2024: THE BOOK: The House on Mango Street BY: Sandra Cisneros?

Sunday, June 9, 2024 is Abused Women and Children's Awareness Day 2024. How To Talk To Your Child‎ Child Abuse Power the Words on Your Children

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A series of vignettes, rather than a structured novel, House on Mango Street is Sandra Cisneros's semi-autobiographical account of growing up Chicana in a poor area of Chicago. Esperanza Cordero, at age eleven, has already discovered that being able to communicate in English is a key to worldly success, and she has begun recording stories of her neighborhood, friends, and everyday life, hoping one day to become a writer. Recreating one year of her life, she vividly depicts the children's fierce loyalties to each other, their alienation from mainstream society, and their goals in life, sadly limited by the culture and its low expectations for girls and women.

Maintaining a childish innocence, Esperanza's first person account reveals her growing awareness of alternatives to her Mango Street existence. She is saddened that her friend Sally, an abused child, never escapes, marrying very early ("in a state where children can marry before they have finished eighth grade"). Alicia, an older, highly motivated friend, however, works to achieve an education and spends long hours traveling to and from school so that she can move beyond Mango Street. Her prescient Aunt Lupe tells Esperanza to "Keep writing. It will keep you free," and a psychic tells her that she must work hard and write so that she can "come back for those who cannot make it out on their own."

Dealing with everyday issues of maturity, a growing awareness of her own sexuality, and her resentment of a world which does not value women, Esperanza is an astute observer, telling stories filled with the humor, wonder, and sometimes heartbreak. As she tells about innocently riding in a stolen car; about the death of her friend Marin's boyfriend whose Mexican parents will never hear of his death because no one knows where to find them; about being assaulted while waiting for her friend Sally, who never answers her pleas for help; about Mamacita, who never leaves her apartment because she is cannot communicate in English; and about her own mother's inability to travel on public transportation because she is afraid, she recreates Mango Street with all its limitations--and excitements.

Like a red balloon which wants to escape its anchor, Esperanza dreams of having a better home, a better life, and greater opportunities. "I have decided not to grow up tame," she says, but she is firmly anchored to Mango Street through her experiences, and these, she discovers ironically, will eventually become the source material for her writing. Through Mango Street, Esperanza defines herself, but through her writing, she will set herself free.

For those of you who firmly believe in god: Why does god allow certain types of people in this world to,,,?

Friend, God never said the road to the kingdom would be easy, in fact he compared it to threading a camel through the eye of a needle. To get into heaven you must go through tests, this is your life. God is using this world to see who deserves to be with him in heaven. People who do these horrible things and do not repent and change their ways are not fit to go to heaven, and God puts people into these difficult situations to see if they truly love God and believe in him. I have been through some tough times as I'm sure you have. My beliefs have been shaken only momentarily until I regained control of my emotions. God may seem cruel, mean, or unfair but, you reap what you sew. A person who goes through these tribulations and keeps their faith is only rewarded more. God gives people success to see how they deal with what they have been given. If I was given a million dollars I would try to do a much good with it as much as I could by donating, spreading awareness of disease, and other charitable acts. Some people are given these amazing gifts and they squander it. They spend their money, they don't go to church and they abuse others. He sees this and makes note of it and he will remember it until the day you die and when you meet him he will ask you why you have sinned. It is said is is easier for a poor man to enter the kingdom than a rich man. Belief and following of god is perhaps one of the most valuable qualities a person can have in them.

How could you say this 12 week old fetus is not a living human being?

I understand and appreciate what you are trying to do. You are not sick in the head; abortion is sick, and that's the reality. People say you are sick because they don't want to face reality. You are not trying to "outrage" people, you are trying to raise awareness. And if they are outraged, then that is their problem. Actually, abortion itself SHOULD outrage people, but here, they shoot the messenger.

That being said, I do agree that the Pregnancy section should not be the place for this sort of thing. However, abortion is talked about ALL OVER the Pregnancy section, so I don't really believe your post is out of place. Maybe it could be seen as insensitive, because a lot of women on here are actually pregnant, but what is truly insensitive is abortion itself, and people use all sorts of excuses to avoid it. There are always polls and conversations here about abortion, so I don't see why your post is any different from theirs, and no one HAS to read your post. They can move on if they want. They are just angry because you are pro-life.

Of course the unborn child at any stage is a human being, but people will deny that for as long as they want to justify their actions, just as black slaves were considered non-human for the selfish purposes of their "masters." The moment the sperm and egg come in contact, a new human--it can't be anything but human with two human parents!!--being comes into existence with his or her own genetic code, blood type, gender. Everything is all set from that moment onward.

Life obviously begins at conception because only living cells can divide and multiply, which the newly-conceived child's cells do immediately after conception. Non-living cells cannot move, much less divide and grow and develop, yet the unborn child at the earliest stage has begun doing this. This is basic, yet people still pretend not to know. Of course we know.

Our bodies are 100% cells, and that's it. Our souls are what animate (make "alive") our bodies. Everything you can see and touch is made of cells, including the human body. So it is with the unborn child, whose little body looks only like cells in the beginning, but who obviously is alive because these cells are alive. We all have to begin somewhere, no? Our bodies begin as tiny cells and our bodies are cells until the day we die, cells that have fully developed. What matters is that we are alive from the first moment of our creation. If we were not, we would not develop at all from the embryonic stage to the fetal stage to birth; there would be no growth from conception onward if we were not first alive at conception. That's basic logic, but again, people pretend not to know.

It's interesting to note that a newborn does NOT look like an adult and is extremely under-developed even compared to a 6-month-old. Does that mean that child, under-developed as s/he is, is not a human? Of course not. Then the little embryonic child is not any less human just because s/he does not "look" human. It's just a matter of science; of course they are alive.

It's also interesting to note that the words "fetus" and "embryo" are Latin words meaning "offspring" and "growing within," and these are just stages of life like "newborn," "toddler," "adult," and so on, yet people use these terms "fetus" and "embryo" as if to imply that children at this stage of life are not human. It's an abuse of words and their meaning.

I congratulate you for your courage in putting up your post. People will hate it, and they will hate my response, as usual, but the truth hurts people who are not ready to accept it. Of course, for any women who are post-abortive, this is a very touchy subject, and in that case, instead of them getting angry with you, they ought to consider getting the counseling and healing they need: