After you have read the first three or four chapters of Esperanza Rising, try to imagine what it was like for Esperanza growing up on a large ranch in central Mexico. Follow the link below to a map of Mexico and find Aguascalientes. You can get a closer view by selecting Aguascalientes on the pull down menu.
Write a short play in which you and your classmates act the parts of Esperanza and her family, and servants, and friends, celebrating Esperanza's twelfth birthday, the one before her father was killed by bandits. Before you begin, re-read the first three chapters and make notes on what was being planned for her thirteenth birthday. Then answer the questions below. Below is a link to Las Mañanitas, the Birthday Song, with some audio files you can listen to.
When you have read the first six chapters of Esperanza Rising, through "Los Melones" (cantaloupes), stop and consider the big decision that Ramona, Esperanza's mother, must make. After the death of her husband, Sixto Ortega, Ramona must decide whether to marry his brother, Tio Luis, and stay at El Rancho de las Rosas in Aguascalientes. Or should she leave her home and her mother behind in Mexico and run away with her daughter, Esperanza, and go along with her friends and former servants Alfonso and Hortensia and their son Miguel to California?
This was a very big decision for Ramona. To help you understand its importance, try the following exercise: make two lists. First list all the reasons why Ramona and Esperanza might want to stay on the ranch in Aguascalientes instead of running away to California. Then make a second list of all the reasons why they would choose to leave and go with Alfonso and Hortensia and Miguel to California. What do you think you would do if you had to make such a decision?
Before you make your lists, follow the links to these websites to see what life was like for those living in Mexico during and just after the Mexican Revolution of 1910:
After you visit the websites, answer the questions on the Immigration Worksheet and make your two lists: 1. Reasons to stay in Aguascalientes, and 2. Reasons to go to California.
What would it be like to be a migrant farm worker in the 1930s? Based on your reading of Esperanza Rising and on the websites listed below, write a short dramatic sketch describing some activity you might be engaged if you were living in one of the farm labor camps in the 1930s. Or conduct an interview with Esperanza or one of the other characters in the novel. The following links will give you more information on the Great Depression and on migrant farm workers:
Imagine yourself working in the fields or taking the part of a union organizer who visits with the others and try to persuade them to join the union and strike. Or perhaps you are going shopping at the Japanese grocery, or preparing a meal after a day of working in the fields. Or you may be a journalist conducting an interview with Esperanza or one of the other farm laborers in which you ask them about their working conditions. Before you write your dramatic sketch, answer the following questions to help you prepare:
When you have finished reading Esperanza Rising, go to the story worksheet and answer the following questions: