At first, the language annoyed me just a little bit: not the writing style, which is robust and poetic and earthy, but the occasional Spanish word or phrase slipped in and then defined. I love Spanish, but dialogue like this--"Que paso, nina? What happened?"--made me grit my teeth a bit. No one speaks that way. You say the sentence in the language you and your listener know; only if you're actually trying to teach someone a new language do you bother to say things twice. So I felt like I was reading a novel that was also trying to be a "Fun Way to Learn a Little Spanish," which I resented. I would have preferred it if Ryan could have simply provided context clues, instead of outright translations, to make the Spanish accessible for her young readers.
But enough of that and on to plot. Ryan has woven a story as beautiful, simple, and subtle as the zigzag blanket that Esperanza crochets throughout the book. It's the story of a young girl who has grown used to a life of wealth and ease as a rancher's daughter in Mexico. A series of unfortunate events that would make Lemony Snicket cringe forces Esperanza and her newly widowed mother to flee the country in secret and become migrant workers in California, where they live and toil alongside the couple and son who used to be their servants in Mexico.
Esperanza is an endearing character: naive and pampered, but well-meaning. It is poignant to watch her grow from a girl who can't stand dirt and yet has never handled a broom into a budding young woman adept at various kinds of manual labor, paying her own bills and putting aside savings in the hope of bringing her grandmother over from Mexico. Yet one of the most touching aspects of the book, I think, is Esperanza's mother. Clearly no snob, she is nothing but grateful to her former servants for helping her and her daughter start a new life, and she embraces the people and the work in the migrant camps. Esperanza has a harder time, and receives a rebuke from her mother when she won't let a poor girl play with her cherished doll for fear of the girl's soiled hands. I couldn't help but muse (this is the mom in me) that Esperanza's mother, though grieved over the loss of her home, her husband, and her lifestyle, may secretly welcome the realization that her daughter has been too sheltered and cherish the downfall that will help her grow.
At the migrant camps, Esperanza becomes acquainted with some workers who want to strike for better wages and living situations. At first she feels nothing but distaste for their actions, which put everyone in danger, but by the end of the novel she wonders if perhaps those strikers, who have been rounded up and sent back to Mexico (even though some of them are American citizens) may have been right. She never makes a firm decision on that, and the nuance that now tinges her increasingly complex world-view is one of the things I admire most about the book.
I was filled with even more admiration when I read Ryan's afterword, in which she reveals that most of the circumstances in the tale were based on the experiences of her own grandmother, who did indeed find herself expelled from a life of privilege in Mexico to struggle in poverty in the U.S. For those of us grown-up readers of children's lit. who are feeling frustrated, anxious, or even desperate in our present economy, this story can pack quite a punch. In fact, as Matt and I wait and wait and wait for our apartment to sell (on the market for ten months and counting...), I find myself recalling the advice Esperanza receives from her father: "Aguantate tantito y la fruta caera en tu mano...Wait a little while and the fruit will fall into your hand." And maybe our whole country is beginning to taste the fruit promised by a Mexican proverb with which Ryan prefaces her novel: "El mas rico el rico cuando empobrece que el pobre cuando enriquece. The rich person is richer when he becomes poor, than the poor person when he becomes rich."
