When you watch a movie, you get to sit back and enjoy the sights and sounds. That’s because many people worked for months or even years to make sure that the locations, characters, and objects look just right for the story. Reading a story requires a little more work from you, though—and a lot of imagination!
To follow the events in a written story, it helps to imagine how things look, sound, or even smell. You might imagine how the arroz (rice) smells as Mama cooks it and how warm the air is at the jamaica. You can imagine the feeling of Isabel’s kitten in her arms and the texture of the burlap bags used to gather vegetables from the fields. Of course, you won’t be able to imagine these things if you don’t know what they are.
Everything you learn about Mexican culture and the lives of farm laborers can help you imagine the events in Esperanza Rising. Study each of these images and read how they relate to the novel’s events.
In the chapter you just read, Isabel and Esperanza shell almonds to make flan. Isabel explains that a strike almost ended the almond season once before. If you can imagine this scene clearly, it will help you understand some of the stressful choices that farm workers like Esperanza face, such as whether or not to join a strike.
Before she left Mexico, Esperanza hoped to ask Hortensia to make rosehip tea from Papa’s roses. If you know that a rosehip is the berry left behind after a rose’s petals fall off, the scene might make more sense to you. That background knowledge might also help you understand why it is so important that Papa’s roses survived the fire and can grow again in California.
The almonds that Isabel and Esperanza shell are carried in a burlap bag. If you know that burlap is a rough, scratchy cloth, you will appreciate a scene later on in the novel when old burlap bags are cut up and used to make clothes. Your background knowledge will help you imagine how it would feel to wear clothes made from burlap. It might also help you guess why the camp workers use burlap as fabric for clothing.
At the beginning of this lesson, you learned about other cultural traditions that fill Esperanza’s life. At the end of the chapter you just finished, Mama and Esperanza talk about what they will pray for at church the next day. Why does Esperanza plan to light a candle at church?
