Side Trip: Mango Street

When I was growing up, I lived next to what the residents of my hometown now proudly refer to as "Oakieville," a ramshackle area tinted with Southern slang and its own kind of ease.

I went to high school with the kids who lived in Oakieville.

I remember vividly how one kid, a friend of mine, described playing on the levees during long summer nights and how he said that all of the moms in his neighborhood kept an eye on all of them as if they were their own kids.

This friend of mine was mischievous.

One day, mid-story about a scheme he'd tried and failed to hatch in Okieville, his eyes lit up. Bragging about the whole army of moms would call his mom - or anyone's mom - if they caught him or another kid from their neighborhood being shady, he proclaimed, "You can't get away with anything in my neighborhood!"

I remember yearning for a place where I could lounge and swim after dark, far but not too far away from the watchful eyes of moms. Nevermind that that was my neighborhood. That's for another blog post.

The truth about Oakieville was more complicated than my friend's child-eyed view of his neighborhood.

Okieville was known for its crime, and for its drug addictions.

But still, I'd like to believe that a small-town community feel from the South and Great Plains had transplanted itself in those tight-knit, ambling neighborhood streets.

And maybe it did.

So, I found a huge lump in my throat - and a feeling of bewilderment - when I saw on Sandra Cisneros' Instagram page that her classic coming-of-age novel-poem, The House on Mango Street, was being targeted by a school board member in Utah. Here we go again, I thought.

Cisneros - and Mango Street - is routinely called up on short lists of books to be banned - and therefore read - in today's divisive political climate.

Cisneros doesn't always post about the book-banning efforts because, I imagine, it's exhausting to her. I get tired of hearing about who and what is being targeted these days. Because I'm in the word business, I pay nominal attention to stories about Art Spiegelman's Maus being singled-out as inappropriate for readers and the waves of book-buying that folks, often in different zip codes than the book banners, do to combat those challenges.

But this time it was personal.

A Utah State School Board member, Natalie Cline, called Mango Street "Disgusting." You can read the rest of the quote below.

My first reaction was, "What?" Followed by "How?"

It's almost laughable to call any novel disgusting. That word implies that something lacks value, and unless it's a screed that has no redeeming value whatsoever, no book is disgusting. I wish we had settled this with Howl.

Literature has value. Period.

I remembered the worlds I was exposed to when I was young. The places I traveled to while curled up next to my mom, a teacher's aide, read me Number the Stars or The Island on Bird Street. (Mom was fascinated by WWII when I was a kid).

Those places, and the people in them, enriched the inner worlds that I built inside my head. Poured empathy into me like milk into a clear glass saucer because I could relate to their experiences.

The power of literature.

What's specific to me about Mango Street, though, is that it touched my heart.

I loved how each short chapter of 2-3 pages was a character sketch or a scene in someone's life. Esperanza Cordero, the young narrator, describes her world - the world of Mango Street in a rough (but rough like Oakieville) part of Chicago - with such gentleness and beauty that I fell in love with Mango Street. She captures the quality of the people she interacts with through the language that they use, their language.

I remember one chapter where Esperanza is describing her friends, two sisters named Rachel and Lucy who, being from Texas, I imagined as Oakies. I just found out from SparkNotes that they're actually Chicana girls:

"'We come from Texas,'" Lucy says and grins. 'Her was born here, but me I'm Texas.'"

My grandma was from Texas. I can't imagine a more Texas thing to say than, "Me, I'm Texas."

Rachel and Lucy's language was gentle - like children's language usually is. Esperanza's language is gentle, too, even though she's older and more of an observer. All of Mango Street captures the innocence of childhood so specifically that I guess I just filled in the blanks of my understanding with people from my own life.

Another line in Mango Street goes something like this: When we drive through other neighborhoods, we roll up our windows and lock our cars. But when people who aren't from Mango Street drive through our neighborhood, they roll up their windows and lock their cars.

It's funny how Esperanza/Cisneros puts it. A point of truth that only a kid from a "bad" neighborhood can laugh at - unless they read Mango Street or read in general. A point of truth that even jaded adults can agree on.

And, really, I think that's why I wept when that Board of Education member called Mango Street disgusting. Censorship doesn't just attack the truths of readers, writers, and narrators (yes, they're real, too).

Its futility is that it attacks the imagination. It attacks creativity. Hell, it attacks empathy itself.

Mango Street was one of the only books I read in school that didn't seem stuffy or self-important. From the eyes of a child, Cisneros tells truths as only a child can. She uses language gently and realistically. I read Of Mice and Men, which features Oakies and migrant workers, but only Mango Street populated my working-class world with its people.

Because I filled in the blanks with my world.

Let's forget that I completely blanked on the sexual assault that I hear Esperanza lives through (by Sire??).

Or yes, that it describes a hardscrabble world teeming with complexity. Just like my hometown's Oakieville.

That imagination, and the creativity that took Cisneros to write Mango Street, is something that we're all capable of. Something that no book ban can eradicate.

Which is what scares book banners the most.

Because who knows? Another reader might let someone else into their

Mango Street.