SANDRA CISNEROS: Latina Writer and Activist

This entry in the Hispanic Biographies series has a vivid subject. Sandra Cisneros, author of The House on Mango Street, Woman Hollering Creek, and numerous poems and essays, is the daughter of a Mexican father and a Mexican-American mother. The family lived in a series of apartments and later a bungalow in Chicago's Latino neighborhoods. Cisneros, the only daughter with six brothers, and a shy, self-described ugly duckling, found refuge in books, in reading, and in writing from a very early age. Written in a somewhat plodding style, this takes flight by heavily and freely quoting from Cisneros, who has thought deeply about her heritage as an American, as a Mexican, and as a woman, and who articulates those thoughts willingly and often wildly. Mirriam-Goldberg notes that Cisneros now lives in San Antonio, although one of the best-known, and most ""colorful"" stories about her hasn't been included--that she has scandalized her neighbors by painting her Victorian house in grand shades of purple.