When I read you like this, and I fold you like that, it's so hard to believe, but the meaning's all coming back to me now

I vaguely remember reading House on Mango Street when I was younger. I don't recall whether it was for school or for fun. I don't sense that I gleaned any mystical meaning from it. It was just another book. Another book in a long trail I have left behind me my entire life.

Don't get me wrong, I have a great affinity for Latino culture and lit. When my fam lived in Texas it took about two seconds before I was walking around yell singing O pueblecito de Belen at the holidays and The Ballad of the Alamo the rest of the time.

But Mango Street has always been filed in my mind as just a book. I didn't get all the hullabaloo. Just as with most things though, it was bad timing.

Years later, my college experience coincided with the world realizing Latino lit. Just like American Indian and Asian before it, Latino lit had been championed. By that time I had long since put Ana Castillo's So Far From God on my favorites list. I said, "Bring on Chicano Literature, viva la revolucion!"

All this was priming me for my second Mango Street reading.

Now, years later AGAIN, when I read this lovely subset of lit I get all nostalgic. Even more clearly now, I appreciate the way the accessible language allows the reader greater access to meaning. I appreciate the real quality even surreal events have. For Mango Street specifically, the first time through I completely bypassed or possibly didn't care about the themes which run throughout: ideas of home, finding yourself, and ultimately realizing that yourself was there all the time and it is actually in that place called home.

I closed the book and articulated stated, "wow."

That's my English Literature degree speaking.

All these years of meandering in between reads. I'm finally ready to hear what Mango Street had to say.

"Mango says goodbye sometimes. She does not hold me with both arms. She sets me free."
Sandra Cisneros