The Housewives of Mango Street and Bread Givers Sandra Cisneros was born in Chicago and raised in Illinois. She was the only girl in a family of seven. Cisneros is known for her collected poems and books focusing on the Chicano experience in the United States. In his writings, Cisneros explores and transcends the boundaries of place, ethnicity, gender, and language. Cisneros writes in a lyrical but deceptively simple language. It makes the invisible visible by focusing on the lives of Chicanos: their relationships with their families, their religion, their art, and their politics. Anzia Yezierska has written two story collections and four novels about the struggles of Jewish immigrants in New York. Lower east side. Yezierska's stories explore the theme of characters struggling with the disappointing America of poverty and exploitation while searching for the "real" America of their ideals. It features women's struggles against family, religious injunctions, and socio-economic obstacles to create an independent style. All of his stories incorporate autobiographical components. She was not a master of style, plot development, or characterization, but the intensity of her feelings and aspirations are evident in her narratives that override her imperfections. The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, written in 1984, and Bread Givers by Anzia Yezierska, published in 1925, are both aimed at adolescent and adult audiences and deal with deep and disturbing themes about serious social conditions and their effects on children as adults. Both books are told in the first person; both narrators are young girls living in poor neighborhoods; and both girls witness the harsh realities of life for those who are poor, abused and hopeless. Although the narrators face these overwhelming obstacles, they manage to survive their harsh environments while keeping their wits and strength intact. Esperanza, a Chicana with three sisters and a brother, has dreamed of having her own things since she was ten. She lived in a one-story apartment that Esperanza thought was finally a "real home." Esperanza's family was poor. His father barely made enough money to make ends meet. His mother, a housewife, had no formal education because she had not had the courage to overcome the shame of her poverty, and her escape was to drop out of school. Esperanza felt she had the desire and courage to invent what she would become.