The House on Mango Street, Cisneros' second major publication, was released to critical acclaim, particularly earning praise from the Hispanic community for its realistic portrayals of the Hispanic experience in the United States. Bebe Moore Campbell of The New York Times Book Review wrote: "Cisneros draws on her rich [Latino] heritage . . . and seduces with precise, spare prose, creat[ing] unforgettable characters we want to lift off the page. She is not only a gifted writer, but an absolutely essential one."[66] The book won Cisneros the American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation (1985)[67] and is now required reading in many school curriculums across the United States.[68]
Challenges and attempted banning
Protesters in June 2011 in support of the Tucson Unified School District's Mexican-American studies program. A new state law effectively ended the program, saying it was divisive.Despite its high praise in the realm of Latino literature, The House on Mango Street has also received criticism for its sensitive subject matter and has been banned from several school curriculums. The American Library Association has listed the book as a "Frequently Challenged Book with Diverse Content".[69] For example, in 2012 the St. Helens school board in Oregon removed the book from its middle-school curriculum, expressing "concerns for the social issues presented."[70] In response, Katie Van Winkle, a former student at St. Helens, launched a letter-writing campaign on Facebook. Her efforts to "save Mango Street" were successful and the St. Helens school board voted to keep The House on Mango Street in its curriculum.[71][72]
The House on Mango Street was also one of the 80-plus books that were part of the Tucson Unified School District's K-12 Mexican-American studies curriculum before the program was dismantled under Arizona House Bill 2281.[73] This law "forbids classes to advocate the overthrow of the United States, promote racial resentment, or emphasize students' ethnicity rather than their individuality." When the Mexican-American Studies program was ended, all the books that were associated with it, including "The House on Mango Street", were removed from the school's curriculum.
In response, teachers, authors, and activists formed a caravan in the spring of 2012. The caravan, called the Librotraficante Project, originated at the Alamo and ended in Tucson. Its participants organized workshops and distributed books that had been removed from the curriculum.[74] Cisneros herself traveled with the caravan, reading The House on Mango Street and running workshops about Chicano literature. She brought numerous copies of the book with her, distributed them, and discussed thematic implications of her novel as well as talked about the book's autobiographical elements.[75]
