In this excerpt, Klein describes the character Esperanza's coming of age as a woman, a Chicana, and, at least for now, a resident of Mango Street.

At birth, each person begins a search to know the world and others, to answer the age-old question, "Who am I". This search for knowledge, for truth, and for personal identity is written about in autobiographies and in bildungsroman fiction. For years, though, the canon of United States literature has included predominantly the coming-of-age stories of white, heterosexual males. Where are the stories of the others-the women, the African Americans, the Asian Americans, the Hispanics, the gay males and lesbians? What differences and similarities would we find in their bildungsroman? Many writers, silenced before, are now finding the strengths, the voices, and the market for publication to tell their stones

Chicano/a writers, like African Americans, Asian Americans, and others, are...