Only Daughter

In Sandra Cisneros essay “Only Daughter” Cisneros shows her audience how being an only daughter in a Mexican working class family of nine, of which she is the only girl; has influenced her as a writer. Cisneros emphazies that instead of telling people she was just the only daughter in her family she should be more specific in saying that she was an only daughter of a “Mexican” family because this detail was very important on making her who she is. It is being part of a Mexican family that creates the bases of her writing. Cisneros explains that she was constantly looking for father’s approval not only as a writer but as the “daughter” in her family. She highlights the importance of being Mexican and how that separates her writing from the rest. It is in seeking her father’s approval and being a Mexican women that she set the bar for herself to prove that college was more then a place to go find a husband like her father thought. It was in writing that she would distinguish her self from the rest of her family and their traditional way of thinking. She wanted prove that she could be as equally successful as her brothers who were always getting the support and approval from her father that she had wanted. It was in this aspect of her life that she is now the successful writer that she is today.
     I really enjoyed this essay because Cisneros really shows how different education and being a young women in a traditional Mexican family separates her from the rest. Being a young Mexican women myself having your families approval is something that is constantly at the back of my mind in everything I do. It’s almost what creates the bases of all the decisions that I make for myself. When your part of traditional family it definitely makes doing something “untraditional” a lot harder, especially now living in an era where tradition is not something is followed the way it once was. The examples that Cisneros uses in her essay were easy to relate too and I think why I liked this essay better then the second because I was able to connect to her on that level. I do not have any brothers but I am the oldest daughter out of four so the standards are set really high for me. I can understand Cisneros constant strive for approval because since family is very important in Mexican tradition your family’s approval is that much important as well.