Only Daughter by Sandra Cisneros

Jamielle Silvia           

ENGL 0250-154

H. Susi

October 15, 2011

Only Daughter by Sandra Cisneros

Sandra Cisneros essay Only Daughter is about her growing up the only daughter in the family with six brothers. All her life her father always said he had seven sons and she never corrected him. It seemed all she wanted was to be recognized as his daughter and not one of his sons. After ten years of writing professionally one of her books was sold to a major New York publishing house. Cisneros flew home to Chicago for Christmas to be with her family and she brought a story that was translated into Spanish. She gave the story to her father to read and he loved it, wanted to make more copies for their relatives. This became the most wonderful thing that has happened to Cisneros in the past year.

Not being recognized by your parents can be heartbreaking. You hope to be accepted by them and you want them to believe in you. All Cisneros wanted was her father to accept her for her and maybe look at her differently than her six brothers. He seemed to think all of his children were alike and fail to recognize their differences. When Cisneros showed her father her story and he loved it, it became her happiest moment. I think children need constant praise from their parents so things like this do not happen.

Growing up in a family with all boys must have been very tough. Her brothers can all play and be with each other because they have things in common while she was left to play by herself. All her brothers did not want the embarrassment of playing with a girl in public so they never played with her. Although Cisneros states, “But that aloneness, that loneliness, was good for a would-be writer”, she could have still been a good writer without being alone. I can relate to this because my older brother never wanted us to be around him and his friends. Also I have always had a twin sister to play with so that did not matter. Cisneros believes that she became a better writer because she was left alone so it gave her time to write.

For Cisneros’ most wonderful moment to be that her father wanted to make more copies of her stories baffles me. I think there should be something better than him wanting to make copies of the story to be a happier moment in a girl’s life. For instance, I wrote a story about my father and things he has grown to teach me, and I had to read it in front of our class while he sat in the audience. After I read my story I looked to where he was sitting and he was in tears and I went over to him and he said “that meant so much to me, can I have a copy?” I know it is wrong because to her it was her most wonderful moment I just don’t quite understand it.

This story explains how the only daughter of seven wants to be recognized by her father. Always making a careless mistake saying he had seven sons, and she never corrected him thinking it was just an error. This story made me feel hopeful because her father felt the reason she went to school was to become someone’s wife and instead she became a professional writer. This story also makes me happy because to it proved to him that she was something more than just a wife or a daughter, she proved that she was a writer. Finally after her father read her story he knew that’s what she was destined to do and he was finally proud.