Esparanza rising / by Pam Munoz Ryan.
Bibliographic Citation:
Ryan, P.M. (2000). Esperanza Rising. New York, NY: Scholastic Press.
Summary:
Esperanza Ortega is a budding young woman of means in
Aguascalientes, Mexico. The day before her thirteenth birthday, she pricks her
finger on the thorn of a rose and remembers the superstition of bad luck. She
brushes it off until later in the evening when her father has not returned home
from mending fences with the vaqueros. A search party turns up her father and
the vaqueros, dead at the hands of bandits.
Esperanza and her mother are to retain the house, but her
Tio Luis received the land. Tio Luis proposes marriage to Esperanza’s mother,
Ramona. When Ramona declines, their house is burned down after Tio Luis’
menacing warning. With the help of a neighboring farmer, Alfonso, Hortensia and
Miguel, a family of three that had served the Ortega’s for years, Esperanza and
her mother make their way to California to work in the fields with other poor,
migrant families.
With her father gone, her house and things burned to ashes,
a move to California and learning to work are difficult changes for Esperanza,
who still feels like a young woman of means. However, after her mother falls
ill with Valley Fever and a bout of depression lands her in the hospital,
Esperanza begins to recognize the importance of having her family in spite of
what she has lost. She goes to work in order to pay her mother’s medical bills
and saves up her money to bring her Abuelita from Mexico.
Through it all, with the help of Alfonso, Hortensia, Miguel
and her new friends, Esperanza learns to flourish without her riches. Her
mother eventually comes home from the hospital and her Abuelita arrives from
Mexico, raising the family from the ashes of tragedy.
Impressions:
With loving care, Pam Munoz Ryan wrote a wonderful tribute
in honor of her grandmother, Esperanza Ortega, the muse of the story. The images
of the farm and migrant workers in the work fields of California’s San Joaquin Valley during
the Great Depression give the story historical significance. The tragedy
Esperanza faces, and the changes she has to make and endure, provides a
personal connection. While the reader may not have encountered tragedy of the
same nature, the hope that comes from watching Esperanza rise above her tragedy
with strength, courage and grace is inspiring.
Library Use Suggestions:
Discussion about losing someone important such as a grandparent, parent or sibling. Those that have lost someone, if willing, share feelings and challenges faced in the following days and months after the loss.
Reviews:
The author of Amelia and Eleanor Go for a Ride
(1999) and Riding Freedom (1997) again approaches historical fiction, this time
using her own grandmother as source material. In 1930, Esperanza lives a
privileged life on a ranch in Aguascalientes, Mexico. But when her father dies,
the post-Revolutionary culture and politics force her to leave with her mother
for California. Now they are indebted to the family who previously worked for
them, for securing them work on a farm in the San Joaquin valley. Esperanza
balks at her new situation, but eventually becomes as accustomed to it as she
was in her previous home, and comes to realize that she is still relatively
privileged to be on a year-round farm with a strong community. She sees migrant
workers forced from their jobs by families arriving from the Dust Bowl, and
camps of strikers—many of them US citizens—deported in the "voluntary
repatriation" that sent at least 450,000 Mexicans and Mexican-Americans
back to Mexico in the early 1930s. Ryan's narrative has an epic tone,
characters that develop little and predictably, and a romantic patina that
often undercuts the harshness of her story. But her style is engaging, her
characters appealing, and her story is one that—though a deep-rooted part of
the history of California, the Depression, and thus the nation—is little heard
in children's fiction. It bears telling to a wider audience.
(2000, October 1). [Review of Esperanza Rising]. Kirkus Reviews. Retrieved from https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/pam-munoz-ryan/esperanza-rising/
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