I chose the word, because this is what I think of when I imagine what the area looks like around where Esperanza would live. Poverty is a big theme of the story, because they don’t really have any money at all, and their yards and such are probably very unkempt with trash everywhere. This is what defines the people that live in areas like this. They tend to be classified as poor, like Esperanza’s family. The boards over windows, crumbling house, and overgrown foliage everywhere is how Esperanza’s house is described in the book. It is not a perfect representation of what Esperanza’s house looked like, but this is how impoverished areas tend to appear. These people don’t really have anything. I don’t think that her condition was as bad as people that live in like Rio or Africa, but she is still very poor. This is why she has to eat rice sandwiches for lunch, and not the usual sandwich. There  is nothing they can really do about their poverty either, especially if they are minorities, any where they go there will be racism. Almost in every chapter of the book, there are traces of poverty. Whether it is talking about the house they live in, or the area in which they live, poverty is everywhere. Esperanza wants to try to escape this life when she becomes older, but there is no outrunning your previous life, you will always be followed. The only thing she can do is hope for a better life.

Photographer: Feifiei Sun

Source: http://lightbox.time.com/2011/11/17/below-the-line-portraits-of-american-poverty/#3