What are some specific cultural differences in The House on Mango Street?

The House on Mango Street is a series of coming-of-age vignettes about the childhood and growth of Esperanza, a young girl of Mexican descent who lives in a poor Latino neighborhood of Chicago. The author, Sandra Cisneros, based this fictionalized childhood on her own experiences in Chicago in the late 50s and early 60s. Cisneros drew upon her exposure to classism, sexism, racism, and nationalism to tell Esperanza's story, and almost every vignette reflects at least one of these ideas.

The very first tale, "The House on Mango Street," starkly illustrates the differences between the culture that Esperanza was raised in and that of the surrounding, wealthier neighborhood. Before Esperanza moves to Mango Street, a nun from Esperanza's Catholic school happens to be in her old neighborhood. They have this conversation:

Where do you live? she asked.

There, I said pointing up to the third floor.

You live there?

Esperanza recognizes that her living situation, a broken-down, boarded-up hovel, doesn't live up to the standards of the homes she sees on television. But beyond that, nothing about her living conditions strikes her as unusual. To the nun, however, the conditions are shocking—she looks at Esperanza's home with disbelief, completely unused to a culture that considers such buildings acceptable abodes.

Ironically, the same disdain for Esperanza's home leads the nuns to dismiss its redeeming features. In "A Rice Sandwich," a different nun points out an apartment building that "even the raggedy men are ashamed to go into." To the nuns, a bad neighborhood is a bad neighborhood, but to someone of Esperanza's cultural upbringing, even slums are stratified.

It's worth reiterating that the nuns are her teachers, because education highlights another major culture clash—this time, a generational one within her own neighborhood. The late 50s and early 60s represented major leaps forward in the American feminist movement, and the characters in Cisneros's story are caught up in the tide. In "Alicia Who Sees Mice," Esperanza's friend Alicia travels on "two trains and a bus" to go to school, even though her father thinks a woman should be happy to get up with the "tortilla star" to cook for her family.

Finally, Esperanza's identity as Latina is a cultural difference in and of itself. It's simply and briefly explained in "Those Who Don't," in which Esperanza tells readers about the fear of the unknown that outsiders face in her "brown" neighborhood and how her neighbors feel the same when they leave their comfort zone. The same issues of race are explored in more depth in "Geraldo No Last Name," where the doctors and police are dismissive of the death of a "wetback." But from within the Latino community, Esperanza and her friend Marin have a different perspective:

They never saw the kitchenettes. They never knew about the two-room flats and sleeping rooms he rented, the weekly money orders sent home, the currency exchange. How could they?

As members of Geraldo’s culture, the girls understand him in a way that outsiders cannot (or will not, depending on your point of view).