We didn't always live on Mango Street. Before that we lived on Loomis on the third floor, and before that we lived on Keeler. Before Keeler it was Paulina, and before that I can't remember.
But what I remember most is moving a lot. Each time it seemed there'd be one more of us. By
the time we got to Mango Street we were six-Mama, Papa, Carlos, Kiki, my sister Nenny and
me.
The house on Mango Street is ours, and we don't have to pay rent to anybody, or share the
yard with the people downstairs, or be careful not to make too much noise, and there isn't a
landlord banging on the ceiling with a broom. But even so, it's not the house we'd thought
we'd get
We had to leave the flat on Loomis quick. The water pipes broke and the landlord wouldn't fix
them because the house was too old. We had to leave fast. We were using the washroom
next door and carrying water over in empty milk gallons. That's why Mama and Papa looked
for a house, and that's why we moved into the house on Mango Street, far away, on the other
side of town
They always told us that one day we would move into a house, a real house that would be
Ours for always so we wouldn't have to move each year. And our house would have running
water and pipes that worked. And inside it would have real stairs, not hallway stairs but.'
stairs inside like the houses on TV. And we'd have a basement and at least three washrooms
so when we took a bath we wouldn't have to tell everybody. Our house would be white with
trees around it, a great big yard and grass growing without a fence. This was the house Papa
talked about when he held a lottery ticket and this was the house Mama dreamed up in the
stories she told us before we went to bed.
But the house on Mango Street is not the way they told it at all. It's small and red with tight
steps in front and windows so small you'd think they were holding their breath. Bricks are
crumbling in places, and the front door is so swollen you have to push hard to get in. There is
no front yard, only four little elms the city planted by the curb. Out back is a small garage for
the car we don't own yet and a small yard that looks smaller between the two buildings on
either side. There are stairs in our house, but they're ordinary hallway stairs, and the house
has only one washroom. Everybody has to share a bedroom-Mama and Papa, Carlos and
Kiki, me and Nenny.
One
when we were living on Loomis, a nun from my school passed by and saw me playing
out front. The laundromat downstairs had been boarded up because it had been robbed two
days before and the owner had painted on the wood YES WE'RE OPEN so as not to lose
business
Where do you live? she asked.
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