Utbildningsradion – Over to You 2000/2001
The House on Mango Street 2
Programnr: 00060/ra 17
THE HOUSE ON MANGO STREET 2
Av Sandra Cisneros
(published by Vintage Books/Random House)
Manus: Claes Nordenskiöld
Producent: Claes Nordenskiöld
Sändningsdatum: 14/11, 2000
Programlängd: 9’28
MUSIC: Ry Cooder ‘Church’
SANDRA CISNEROS: House On Mango Street exists in the imagination
because it's really a composite of several neighborhoods. So I was always living in
neighborhoods where there was cheap housing – usually in the neighborhoods
with a great deal of racial tension, communities with the fleeing white
community and an incoming black community. And depending on who was
looking at me, I was either black or white, depending on who the viewer was.
MUSIC: Ry Cooder ‘King of the Street’
Those Who Don't
Those who don't know any better come into our neighborhood scared. They
think we're dangerous. They think we will attack them with shiny knives.
They are stupid people who are lost and got here by mistake.
But we aren't afraid. We know the guy with the crooked eye is Davey the
Baby's brother, and the tall one next to him in the straw brim, that's Rosa's
Eddie V., and the big one that looks like a dumb grown man, he's Fat Boy,
though he's not fat anymore nor a boy.
All brown all around, we are safe. But watch us drive into a neighborhood of
another color and our knees go shakity-shake and our car windows get rolled
up tight and our eyes look straight. Yeah. That is how it goes and goes.
MUSIC: Ry Cooder ‘Church’
A Smart Cookie
I could've been somebody, you know? my mother says and sighs. She has
lived in this city her whole life. She can speak two languages. She can sing an
opera. She knows how to fix a T.V. But she doesn't know which subway
train to take to get downtown. I hold her hand very tight while we wait for
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Utbildningsradion – Over to You 2000/2001
The House on Mango Street 2
Programnr: 00060/ra 17
the right train to arrive.
She used to draw when she had time. Now she draws with a needle and
thread, little knotted rosebuds, tulips made of silk thread. Someday she
would like to go to the ballet. Someday she would like to see a play. She
borrows opera records from the public library and sings with velvety lungs
powerful as a morning glory.
Today while cooking oatmeal she is Madame Butterfly until she sighs and
points the wooden spoon at me. I could've been somebody, you know?
Esperanza, you go to school. Study hard. That Madame Butterfly was a fool.
She stirs the oatmeal. Look at my comadres. She means Izaura whose husband
left and Yolanda whose husband is dead. Got to take care all your own, she
says shaking her head.
Then out of nowhere:
Shame is a bad thing, you know. It keeps you down. You want to know why
I quit school? Because I didn't have nice clothes. No clothes, but I had brains.
Yup, she says disgusted, stirring again. I was a smart cookie then.
MUSIC: Flaco Jimenez ‘Las Golondrinas’
Linoleum Roses
Sally got married like we knew she would, young and not ready but married
just the same. She met a marshmallow salesman at a school bazaar, and she
married him in another state where it's legal to get married before eighth
grade. She has her husband and her house now, her pillowcases and her plates.
She says she's in love, but I think she did it to escape.
Sally says she likes being married because now she gets to buy her own things
when her husband gives her money. She is happy, except sometimes her
husband gets angry and once he broke the door where his foot went through,
though most days he is okay. Except he won't let her talk on the telephone.
And he doesn't let her look out the window. And he doesn't like her friends,
so nobody gets to visit her unless he is working.
She sits at home because she is afraid to go outside without his permission.
She looks at all the things they own: the towels and the toaster, the alarm
clock and the drapes. She likes looking at the walls, at how neatly their
corners meet, the linoleum roses on the floor, the ceiling smooth as wedding
cake.
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Utbildningsradion – Over to You 2000/2001
The House on Mango Street 2
Programnr: 00060/ra 17
Bums In the Attic
MUSIC: Ry Cooder ‘Church’
I want a house on a hill like the ones with the gardens where Papa works. We
go on Sundays, Papa's day off. I used to go. I don't anymore. You don't like
to go out with us, Papa says. Getting too old? Getting too stuck-up, says
Nenny. I don't tell them I am ashamed – all of us staring out the window
like the hungry. I am tired of looking what we can't have. When we win the
lottery … Mama begins, and then I stop listening.
People who live on hills sleep so close to the stars they forget those of us who
live too much on earth. They don't look down at all except to be content to
live on hills. They have nothing to do with last week's garbage or fear of rats.
Night comes. Nothing wakes them but the wind.
One day I'll own my own house, but I won't forget who I am or where I
came from. Passing bums will ask, Can I come in? I'll offer them the attic,
ask them to stay, because I know how it is to be without a house.
Some days after dinner, guests and I will sit in front of a fire. Floorboards
will squeak upstairs. The attic grumble.
Rats? they'll ask.
Bums, I'll say, and I'll be happy.
MUSIC: Ry Cooder ‘Church’
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