Only Daughter





About the Author

Sandra Cisneros the writer of the essay ‘Only Daughter’ was born into a working-class family in 1954. She was the daughter of a Mexican-American mother and a Mexican father. She spent much of her childhood shuttling between Chicago and Mexico City. She was a lonely, bookish child who began writing surreptitiously at a young age but only began to find her voice when she was a creative-writing student at Loyola University and later at the University of lowa Writers’ Workshop. Her best-known works are the novel The House on Mango Street (1983) and the short-story collection Woman Hollering Creek (1991); she has also published several collections of poetry. Cisneros’s latest novel, Caramelo, appeared in 2002.

Background on gender preference

In the following essay, which originally appeared in Glamour magazine in 1990, Cisneros describes the difficulties of growing up as the only daughter in a Mexican-American family of six sons. Historically, sons have been valued over daughters in most cultures, as reflected in the following proverbs: “A house full of daughters is like a cellar full of sour beer” (Dutch); “Daughters pay nae (no) debts” (Scottish); “A stupid son is better than a crafty daughter” (Chinese); and “A virtuous son is the sun in his family” (Sanskrit). This was largely the case because limited employment opportunities for women meant that sons were more likely to be able to provide financial support for aging parents. Contemporary research advises that while the preference for male children has contracted considerably in industrialized nations, a distinct preference for sons lingers among many cultures in Asia and the Middle East, hovering concerns among medical ethicists worldwide. And, even within the more traditional cultures of the industrialized world, old habits of mind regarding the role of women in society can die hard, as the attitudes of Cisneros’s father suggest.


Review

In the essay, The ‘Only Daughter’ by Sandra Cisneros, Sandra discusses her life and her relationship she had with her father. She was raised in a Mexican-American household with a family of six siblings and she was the only girl. Being the only girl in her family, Sandra had to struggle a lot to impress her father as her father was conformist. He thought that she would become nothing more than somebody else’s wife and believed that college is good for women in finding husbands.
Furthermore, Sandra’s father didn’t know how to read English. She wanted to win his approval that she was something more other than being just a wife. Here, the audience gets the vibe that she likes to “think, to imagine, to read and prepare [her]self.”, as well as likes to write. Her family chose to ignore her because she was a girl. However, the day when her story got translated from English to Spanish, her father ended up reading her work, viewing her now, in a different light. The quotation “Where can we get more copies of this for the relatives?” in the last paragraph was significant because it tells readers that he was proud for what she has accomplished. This was known when he wanted to share her stories to other people around them which showed that he was proud of his daughter and finally accepted her.
  • The theme that was rendered throughout the essay is the gender equity. She was viewed differently because Sandra was the only girl in her family. Her brothers even laughed at her for attending college. Example: "That meant a lot to me, especially since my brothers thought the idea hilarious."
  • As being the only female her father expected her to find a husband and become a housewife.
o                       Sandra's work is finally acknowledged by her father.
  • She was able to prove that she was more than just a wife.
  • Her father also realized her potential and effort that she had put into her project. For this reason, he is proud of her daughter.
“After four years in college and two more in graduate school, and still no husband, my father shakes his head even now and says I wasted all that education.”
This statement means that her father doesn’t care about her education rather cares about the Sandra’s future in having a husband.


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