My Name Summary

Esperanza thinks of the origin of her name and wishes she had a different one. She is named after her great-grandmother, who was also born during the Chinese year of the Horse. She becomes sad when she thinks of her great-grandmother, who was swept away by a man and lonely for the rest of her life. "She looked out the window he whole life, the way so many women sit their sadness on an elbow…I have inherited her name, but I don't want to inherit her place by the window" (Cisneros 12). Esperanza resents the long, arduous pronunciation of her, she and is constantly teased at school because of it. She thinks Nenny is lucky, because at school she must go by her full given name, Magdalena, which is just as difficult to say at is Esperanza, but at least when...