Vivid, funny, intimate, historical, it is a brilliant work destined to become a classic: a major new novel from one of our country's most beloved storytellers. We travel from the Mexico City that was the 'Paris of the New World' to the music-filled streets of Chicago at the dawn of the Roaring Twenties-and finally, to Lala's own difficult adolescence in the not-quite-promised land of San Antonio, Texas.Ĭaramelo is a vital, wise, romantic tale of homelands, sometimes real, sometimes imagined. Her criticism is even more powerful because she veils her anger instead of making it explicit. In Chapter Three, I will center on Sandra Cisneros, Cherre Moraga, and Gloria Anzalda’s essays on sexuality and self-definition to contextualize the social relevance of the process of feminist awakening narrated in Caramelo. By completely separating the men’s world from the women’s, Cisneros indicts both men and her culture. benevolent sexist attitudes in Caramelo and the widespread of sexist ideas through telenovela conventions. It is there, each year, that Lala hears her family's stories, separating the truth from the 'healthy lies' that have ricocheted from one generation to the next. The boys, as she says in an early section, live in their own worlds.

The novel opens with the Reyes' annual car trip-a caravan overflowing with children, laughter, and quarrels-from Chicago to 'the other side': Mexico City. Much of the inspiration for Caramelo comes from her childhood, as part of a huge family where she was the youngest with six older brothers. Sandra is a Chicana writer raised in the U.S., in Chicago, who began publishing her work in the 1980’s.

The striped (caramelo) is the most beautiful of all, and the one that makes its way, like the family history it has come to represent, into Lala's possession. The book I chose to review is Caramelo by Sandra Cisneros, published in 2002.

Lala Reyes' grandmother is descended from a family of renowned rebozo-, or shawl-makers.

Caramelo sandra cisneros sparknotes