The House on Mango Street Chapters 26-52 Summary

"Marin" is about Louie's cousin whose aunt says she's going to send her back to Puerto Rico where her boyfriend is. Marin would rather stay and work downtown to potentially meet a rich man. Marin likes to stand outside so that the boys can see how pretty she is. The chapter "Those Who Don't" explains the fear that outsiders feel when they come into their neighborhood, thinking that they're dangerous due to their skin color. Ironically, they feel the same way when they enter neighborhoods with people of a different color.

In "There Was an Old Woman She Had So Many Children She Didn't Know What to Do" she describe Rosa Vargas who has too many children, so she can't keep track of them all. The neighbors want to watch out for them, but the children are disrespectful and don't listen, so the neighbors give up trying to keep them from hurting themselves, and Angel Vargas died from falling out a window. "Alicia Who Sees Mice" describes a young woman whose mother has died, so she has to help out her father, but she is also attending college in order to not have to use a rolling pin the rest of her life. She fears mice and fathers. In "Darius & the Clouds" he points to the sky and explains to the children how one of the clouds is God.

"And Some More" contains an odd argument about the names of things. Esperanza is trying to explain how the Eskimos have thirty different names for snow, which the other children don't understand. She tries to give them examples using the different types of clouds, but instead one child just starts naming the clouds with people's names as Lucy and Rachel make fun of Esperanza. They call her ugly and being insulting each other's mothers until Esperanza threatens to get her brothers to chase them out of her yard. Esperanza threatens to no longer be their friend as they continue to insult each other's stupidity. The girls are given some old pairs on high heels in "The Family of Little Feet." They try them on and trade them around as Rachel teaches them how to walk properly. Then they parade themselves down the block where people watch and men call out to them, including a homeless man who offers Lucy a dollar for a kiss. The others pull her away before she can say yes, and they run home and hide the shoes until Lucy's mother finds them one day and throws them in the garbage.

"A Rice Sandwich" explains how some students at Esperanza's school were allowed to stay at school and eat in the canteen, which she wanted to try. She asked her mom to write her a note explaining that the walk home was too taxing. Then her mom packed her a rice sandwich because they didn't have any lunchmeat. When she turned in the note to the nuns, they scolded her, which made her cry, and told her she could only stay for the one day. Esperanza sat alone, crying, eating her soggy rice sandwich, wondering why she had wanted to be there. In "Chanclas" Esperanza attends a baptism party in the church basement. She wears a new dress and new shoes, which as saddle shoes so that she can use them for school too. She is embarrassed by them, so she refuses to dance with a young cousin. Then her Uncle Nacho pulls her on the dance floor, and people are impressed by how well the two dance together, and she forgets about her ordinary shoes.

In "Hips" Esperanza, Nenny, Lucy, and Rachel are jumping rope and discussing how and why women's hips widen at some point in their lives. They start making up jump rope rhymes about hips as they double dutch. When Nenny's turn comes, she refuses to make up a new rhyme and just repeats the old ones that they always use, which annoys the other girls a bit, but Nenny doesn't seem to notice.



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