A review by chrysfey
Esperanza Rising by Pam Muñoz Ryan

5.0

I’d been meaning to read this book for a long time. I wish I had read it sooner because it is a great story. In the beginning, I didn’t like Esperanza too much because she’s a spoiled, privileged brat, but her circumstances kept me reading. I had to know what was going to happen to her next. Also, she was written that way for a reason. I loved her transformation by the end of the book. 

There’s threads woven through the story from the very beginning to the end that I enjoyed seeing (her grandmother’s crotchet, her papa’s roses, the yarn doll her mom makes, feeling the earth’s heart beat, etc.).

This story made me think about immigrants now, immigration laws, detention centers, ICE, and all the people who leave Mexico looking for a better life. Although dated back in the 30s, Esperanza’s story is relevant today.

At the end of the book, the author talks about an event that happened in the story and shares historical facts. I never learned about the Deportation Act that was signed into law in 1929, which led to the so-called “voluntary repatriation”…involuntary deportations. The numbers of Mexicans deported (including those who were US citizens and had never lived in Mexico) were greater “than the Native American removals of the nineteenth century and greater than the Japanese-American relocations during World War 11.” Both of those horrible events are left out of our history teachings, as well.