Chapter 1 Summary

The story of Esperanza begins in 1924 when she is just six years old. She lives on a ranch in Mexico with her family where they own a large, successful vineyard. Her father loves the earth and often takes little Esperanza into the fields to lay their heads down on the earth to hear its heartbeat. The reader is taken immediately six years forward to when the grapes are almost ready for harvest. Esperanza, only weeks from her thirteenth birthday, begins the harvest with her father, whom she calls "Papa." Since she is an only child, and there is no son to carry on traditions, she is allowed to cut the first grapes of the harvest and ceremonially presents them to Papa.

The "La cosecha," or harvest ceremony, is attended her parents, Sixto and Ramona Ortega, and the servants, vaqueros, and campesinos. She is...