288 Cisneros, Sandra
Hanging around with boys proves very painful
for Esperanza, and she blames Sally, saying “Sally,
you lied. It wasn’t what you said at all. What he did.
Where he touched me. I didn’t want it, Sally. The
way they said it, the way it’s supposed to be, all the
storybooks and movies, why did you lie to me?” A
forced initiation into sex is the definition of rape
and produces shame in the girl. She knows that her
innocence is lost, physically and emotionally and
that her trust in people is gone. She remembers, “He
said I love you Spanish girl, I love you.”
Esperanza Cordero learns quite early in life that
sex and desire can be a trap underneath the cover
of love. She decides not to choose the model of
life around her. She is no longer naive, trusting, or
innocent. Her life decisions are made against her
new frame of reference. The wondrous joy of the
little girl is permanently tempered by knowledge
and experience.
Elizabeth Malia
CISNEROS, SANDRA Woman
Hollering Creek and Other Stories (1991)
Sandra Cisneros’s Woman Hollering Creek is a col-
lection of vignettes and short stories that focus on
contemporary Chicana and Chicano experiences.
Although each story features plots that are self-con-
tained, all the stories are interconnected by common
themes of patriarchy, betrayal, poverty, and racism,
as well as hope, love, endurance, humor, and faith.
The book is divided into three sections that focus
on particular motifs. The seven stories in “Part I:
My Lucy Friend Who Smells Like Corn,” recount
different childhood experiences. Cisneros captures
the sentiments of a young girl who remembers
spending time in Mexico City with her grandfa-
ther in “Tepeyac” and a child’s excitement of going
to the movie theater with her family in “Mexican
Movies.” In stories about mundane events, Cisneros
reveals the rich and complex experiences of bicul-
tural children. In “Part II: One Holy Night,” the
collection shifts from childhood stories to teenage
protagonists. The two stories in this section examine
how young Chicanas negotiate restrictive cultural
and religious notions of female sex and sexuality.
The last section, “Part III: There Was a Man, There
Was a Woman,” contains 13 stories that focus on
the complexities of love, marriage, and desire. Many
of the stories examine women’s struggles to leave
violent and unsatisfying relationships including the
collection’s most-discussed story, “Woman Holler-
ing Creek.” While “Eyes of Zapata” depicts a woman
who questions cultural double standards, “Bien
Pretty” shows how women find self-empowerment
by challenging limiting gender norms.
Belinda Linn RinconGender in Woman Hollering Creek and Other
Stories
In “Barbie-Q,” a story in the opening section of
Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories, Sandra
Cisneros describes a young narrator who plays
dress-up with her Barbie doll, Cisneros reveals
how a seemingly innocent toy for girls actually
instructs them on how to accept socially constructed
notions of femininity represented by Barbie’s blonde
hair, tanned skin, and impossible bodily propor-
tions. Although the narrator’s race is not explicitly
described, we can assume that she is Chicana like
the book’s other Chicana and Chicano characters.
By portraying how a Latina girl cherishes her Bar-
bie, Cisneros uses irony to critique Barbie as an icon
of idealized Anglo-American feminine beauty and
its influence on the way girls of color view wom-
anhood. Barbie’s standard of beauty is physically
impossible for the narrator to emulate, just as the
cost of a new Barbie and her accompanying outfits
are impossible for the narrator’s parents to afford.
Cisneros emphasizes the narrator’s racial and class
status to show how Barbie, with her slightly melted
foot, is not the perfect representation of universal
beauty after all.
In “Marlboro Man,” Cisneros focuses on a gen-
der icon of masculinity. The Marlboro Man portrays
the image of a cowboy who is master of the range
and whose physicality and cigarette smoking make
him irresistible to women. Cisneros debunks this
image of heterosexual masculinity as the story’s two
narrators gossip about the man who was the original
model for the Marlboro ads. They describe how
he was supposedly a gay man who died of AIDS.
Through their conversation, Cisneros reveals how
gender icons can be destabilized.