Intro
Sandra Cisneros's House on Mango Street tells the funny-sad-happy story of Esperanza, a Chicana girl growing up with her parents and sister in a house on Mango Street in Chicago. Life isn't easy for Esperanza: her parents don't make much money, the house they live in is kind of busted, and people can't pronounce her name properly in school. Esperanza's caught between two worlds: Mexico and the U.S.
Quote
They are the only ones who understand me. I am the only one who understands them. Four skinny trees with skinny necks and pointy elbows like mine. Four who don't belong here but are here. Four raggedy excuses planted by the city. From our room we can hear them, but Nenny just sleeps and doesn't appreciate these things.
Their strength is secret. They send ferocious roots beneath the ground. They grow up and they grow down and grab the earth between their hairy toes and bite the sky with violent teeth and never quit their anger. This is how they keep.
Let one forget his reason for being, they'd all droop like tulips in a glass, each with their arms around the other. Keep, keep, keep, trees say when I sleep. They teach.
When I am too sad and too skinny to keep keeping, when I am a tiny thing against so many bricks, then it is I look at trees. When there is nothing left to look at on this street. Four who grew despite concrete. Four who reach and do not forget to reach. Four whose only reason is to be and be.
Analysis
Esperanza's totally projecting her own experience onto the four skinny trees outside her bedroom window. Like her, these trees "don't belong here but are here." When she says this, Esperanza is referring to her experience as a Chicana girl: she feels like she does and doesn't belong in the U.S. A lot of minority ethnic groups feel like that about their place in the U.S: they feel like they both belong and don't belong.
So, sure, Esperanza has some issues being a Chicana girl in the U.S., but she's also taking strength from the trees, and she sees her own strength in them. The trees are "[f]our who grew despite concrete," and they "keep" and "keep." Like these trees, Esperanza's got a lot of resilience. Even when she's down, even when she's sad, she has her own strength to draw on.
An Ethnic Studies scholar might mention Esperanza's "community cultural wealth" here. (That's the concept that refers to the cultural and other resources that ethnic minority people use to prosper in mainstream culture). Maybe these four trees can be read as a metaphor for this idea. The trees, like Esperanza herself, have a "secret" strength that allows them to thrive, despite all of the obstacles in their way.