Nicole Fernandez
Fitting in
For hispanics living in the U.S. or more specifically female Mexican Americans, Sandra’s Cisneros’ “Only Daughter ” will speak nostalgically and emotionally. Cisneros’ story is personal, especially since the topic at hand seems to be very specialized and for a small audience. Cisneros takes her story onto a personal level, of course staging around her relationship between her father and herself and the overall idea of her identity inside of her family. This autobiographical essay follows Cisnegros’s growing of age narrative in a Mexican 6 male sibling family; we learn of Cisnegros’ lack of appreciation or acceptance from her 6 brothers and father which drove her life and career in writing. Sandra Cisneros, uses “Only Daughter” as a rhetoric for how hispanic sex roles and lack of parental acceptance could effect a persons future, she uses nostalgic momentos the hispanic culture and language to relate her story to her audience.
The story begins with the author stating the most important line of the autobiography “I am the only daughter in a family of six sons”. The author uses this statement to encompass the whole story, the title of only daughter is used not only to name herself in a scene but also as a way to push the idea forward that to her family she was just a daughter. Cisnegros defines this use as she states, “I was/am the only daughter and only a daughter… Being only a daughter for my father meant my destiny would lead me to become someone’s wife” (Cisneros 1). This literary use allows the reader to understand that she didn’t feel as though she was her father’s daughter but rather she was a girl born into this family to be a daughter. The lack of empathy in the phrase “only a daughter” communicates to the reader the lack of appreciation she received from her father. Cisnegros use of the Spanish language is another form of her to communicate to her hispanic audience. Words such as “Maestra”, “Professora”, and “siete hijos” are used to relate to a Spanish audience, but it is also used to explain the further absence of her fathers appreciation towards her. Without knowledge of the Spanish language one may not pick up the subtle details, for example the term used “Hijos’ ‘ can be interpreted as having 7 kids or 7 boys. As a result the following line which Cisnegros states “he meant ‘Siete hijos’ but he translated it as ‘sons’… But somehow I could feel myself being erased” (Cisneros 2).
Cisneros has a great way of allowing the reader to understand her struggles although we may have not lived through. Cisneros helps ease the reader into her situation, even more so to a family situation that is foreign, explaining her expectations as an only daughter, that expectation being to be married off, “What I didn’t realize was that my father thought college was good for girls—good for finding a husband.” Hispanic culture can be relatable to any other with the issue of gender roles, another way for the author to engage the reader’s familiarity with her life’s issue, to understand how one’s aspirations in life could be shuttered by the tact on responsibility of being “only a daughter”.
Cisneros’ ending was a beautiful way to have the reader connect to the story into a full circle. Building her story up from having a strange relationship with her father, clouded by expectations and disappointments. As the story ends we see how impactful Cisneros career is to herself but also her father, by seeing the new found connection he receives after reading her book, it leaves a warm and amusing final impression that for me at least as a reader, felt as though I was with Cisneros as she fulfilled what she desired about her writing.
