Esperanza Rising

57 pages • 1 hour read

Esperanza Rising

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2000

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.

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Introduction

Before Reading

During Reading

After Reading

During Reading

Reading Questions & Paired Texts

Reading Check and Short Answer questions on key points are designed for guided reading assignments, in-class review, formative assessment, quizzes, and more.

CHAPTERS 1-4

Reading Check

1. How does Esperanza’s father teach her to listen to the Earth?

2. What happens the night before Esperanza’s 13th birthday?

3. What are Esperanza’s uncle’s jobs?

4. Who are Hortensia, Alfonso, and Luis to Esperanza and her family?

5. What special ritual does not happen on the morning of Esperanza’s 13th birthday?

6. What plan do the adults share with Esperanza and Miguel?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. Describe Esperanza’s uncles, Tío Luis and Tío Marco.

2. How do Esperanza, her family, and the ranch become indebted to Tío Luis, her father’s stepbrother?

3. Why does Tío Luis insist on Ramona (Esperanza’s mother) marrying him? How does he try to force Ramona to cooperate with his proposal?

4. How does Abuelita comfort Esperanza about the changes she is facing?

Paired Resource

“Historical Note on the Mexican Revolution”

This student-friendly resource provides a brief history of the Mexican Revolution, which provides some important historical context for Esperanza’s story. This page is written by Alda P. Dobbs, author of Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna, a work of historical fiction set in 1913 during the Mexican Revolution, two decades earlier than the events of Esperanza’s story.
In the upcoming chapters, you’ll meet characters who hold strong partisan opinions about the Mexican Revolution and judge Esperanza for whichever side they assume she is on. You will also notice how social class and race impact Esperanza and her family. How do these moments tie into one of the novel’s key themes about The True Meaning of Wealth?

“Brief History of the Mexican Revolution”

This 20-minute video from Crónica Panamericana provides a detailed history of the Mexican Revolution.
It is provided for teacher use to support student understanding and deeper questions, especially those surrounding the roles of race and class in Esperanza’s story.

CHAPTERS 5-7

Reading Check

1. How do Esperanza and her family leave the ranch?

2. As a child, Esperanza’s father rewards Miguel for being brave during a home invasion. What does he choose as his reward?

3. What happens when Esperanza tries to listen to the Earth’s heartbeat in California?

4. Who teaches Esperanza how to sweep?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. How does Esperanza respond to the child who wants to look at her doll?

2. What truth about social class does Esperanza’s mother try to get her to understand on the train?

3. Why doesn’t Esperanza admit to Isabel that she doesn’t know how to sweep?

Paired Resource

Mapping Esperanza’s Journey

This is a student-created map using Step-Map that shows the journey Esperanza made with her family and Miguel’s family, including places mentioned between Aguascalientes, Mexico, and Arvin, California.
This resource connects with the novel’s theme of Embracing New Beginnings.
Imagine Esperanza’s journey on the train, leaving her home, her grandmother, and her old life. What might she and her mother have been thinking on that train ride? What makes you say that?

CHAPTERS 8-11

Reading Check

1. How does Marta know English?

2. Why did the babies get sick from the plums Esperanza gave them?

3. What disease does Esperanza’s mother contract, and how long might it take for her to recover?

4. What does Mama’s illness inspire Esperanza to do?

5. Why does Miguel’s father say that Mr. Yakota “is getting rich on other people’s bad manners”?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. What was in the secret package that Alfonso and Miguel kept tending to on the train?

2. What scares Esperanza most about her mother’s illness?

3. Why do Hortensia and Josefina encourage Esperanza to get out of the camp for the day?

4. How does the worker’s strike benefit Miguel?

Paired Resource

“Why Our Lady of Guadalupe is celebrated across the U.S.”

This article from NBC News explains the cultural, historical, and religious significance that Our Lady of Guadalupe holds for Mexican people all over the world.
After reading this article, why was it so important and meaningful for Esperanza to find not only roses from her home but also a shrine for Our Lady of Guadalupe behind their new home?

“The Great Okie Migration”

This PDF resource from the Smithsonian American Art Museum discusses the Dust Bowl and its economic, artistic, and social impacts. It can provide context for the “Okies” who are also moving into the San Joaquin Valley in this portion of Esperanza Rising.
This context will help students understand the arguments for and against the worker’s strikes that Marta, her friends, and family promote.

“’Decade of Betrayal’: How the U.S. Expelled Over a Half Million U.S. Citizens to Mexico in 1930s”

This video from Democracy Now! contains an interview with professor Francisco E. Balderrama about the forced repatriations of Mexicans and Mexican Americans during the 1930s, some of which Esperanza witnesses and worries about in the upcoming chapters. (The video is 20 minutes long, but the section from 1:27-5:00 is most relevant.)
Teachers might find this helpful to contextualize the events that Esperanza witnesses in fact, not fiction.

CHAPTERS 12-14

Reading Check

1. What are some ways the strikers attempt to slow down the workers?

2. Ramona comes home at the end of Chapter 13, but what is Esperanza still missing?

3. What stories does Isabel ask Abuelita about herself?

4. How did Tío Marco and Tío Luis make life difficult for Abuelita in Mexico?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. What challenges do the strikers face trying to get others to join their cause?

2. Why does Esperanza throw a tortilla and storm out of their cabin?

Recommended Next Reads

Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna by Alda P. Dobbs

This middle-grade historical fiction novel takes place in Mexico, almost 20 years before Esperanza Rising begins. It is the height of the Mexican Revolution and the main character and her family travel to the US-Mexico border seeking asylum and a better life.
Shared themes include The Importance of Family.
Shared topics include grief and socioeconomic class.
Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna on SuperSummary

Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse

This middle-grade historical novel-in-verse takes place in Oklahoma during the 1930s and, like Esperanza Rising, is set during the Great American Dust Bowl. The plot follows two years in the life of 13-year-old Billie Jo Kelbie, who experiences great loss and major changes; like Esperanza, she struggles to adapt to them.
Shared themes include Embrace New Beginnings.
Shared topics include family, change, and economic impacts of historical settings.
Out of the Dust on SuperSummary

Reading Questions Answer Key

CHAPTERS 1-4

Reading Check

1. She lies on the Earth, ears to the ground, and listens. (Chapter 1)

2. Her father gets killed. (Chapter 2)

3. One is a banker and the other is the mayor of the city. (Chapter 2)

4. They are “servants,” or domestic workers, in the Ortega household, but also the family’s closest friends. (Chapter 3)

5. The men, including her father, singing the birthday song beneath her window (Chapter 3)

6. Ramona and Esperanza will travel with Hortensia, Miguel, and Alfonso to the United States, where they will work the fields. (Chapter 4)

Short Answer

1. Both of them are arrogant, greedy, and entitled. (Various chapters)

2. According to the law, Ramona inherits the house and income from the vineyard, but not the land itself. Tío Luis owns the land; therefore, he controls the production of the vineyard. (Chapter 3)

3. He wants her social influence and the prestige of the house and the land so he can run for governor. He burns down the house and the grapes. He threatens to burn down the “servants’ quarters” and all the land if she doesn’t marry him. (Chapters 3-4)

4. She encourages them to not be afraid of new beginnings. She shares how difficult her life was when she moved to Mexico from Spain. And she gives Esperanza a blanket to finish; it is made up of mountains and valleys, which symbolize the ups and downs of life. (Chapter 4)

CHAPTERS 5-7

Reading Check

1. They leave in the middle of the night, riding in the secret compartment of a wagon filled with guavas. (Chapter 5)

2. He chooses a train ride to Zacatecas. (Chapter 5)

3. She can’t hear it, and she faints. (Chapter 6)

4. Miguel (Chapter 7)

Short Answer

1. Student responses will vary but should run along the lines of selfishly, disdainfully, nastily, etc. She refuses to share. (Chapter 5)

2. She and her mother are now one of the “peasants” Esperanza looks down upon. Their new normal is that they are in need of help from others. (Chapter 5)

3. She was embarrassed. (Chapter 7)

CHAPTERS 8-11

Reading Check

1. She was born in the US and is an American citizen. (Chapter 8)

2. The fruit is too hard on their stomachs and should have been cooked first. (Chapter 9)

3. Valley fever, six months (Chapter 9)

4. Take up work to help cover the bills and pay for Abuelita’s travel to the United States (Chapter 10)

5. Many of the Mexican “campesinos” go to Mr. Yakota’s store because he treats them with kindness and respect. They avoid many other stores because they are treated poorly. (Chapter 11)

Short Answer

1. Two rose bushes from their former ranch, the roses that Esperanza’s father planted for Esperanza and Miguel when they were children (Chapter 8)

2. Ramona might die, which would make Esperanza an orphan. Ramona is very weak and begins refusing food—Esperanza feels as if her mother is giving up. (Chapter 10)

3. She’s been sad and despondent. They hope the fresh spring air and the change of scene will help her to feel better. (Chapter 11)

4. He is able to get a railroad job as a mechanic because many railroad workers joined the strike. (Chapter 11)

CHAPTERS 12-14

Reading Check

1. The strikers sabotage the workers by putting everything from snakes, rats, glass, and razors into the asparagus fields. (Chapter 12)

2. All the money orders she saved up to pay for Abuelita’s travel (Chapter 13)

3. Whether she really walks barefoot in the grapes and carries smooth stones in her pockets (Chapter 14)

4. They sent spies to follow her at the market. They questioned all the neighbors including the sisters at the convent. (Chapter 14)

Short Answer

1. More people are coming and willing to work for even less money. Also, the workers don’t want to lose their jobs or what little means they do have—they only want to survive. (Chapter 12)

2. She is frustrated and angry with the racist discrimination everyone around her experiences. (Chapter 13)