Windows

In the series of vignettes that are listed: My name, No Speak English, Rafaela, and Sally, there are many explanations of windows. Esperanza  is the girl who describes the windows in the story's. The significance goes to what it means to her.
     In the vignette My Name, there is a sad description of windows. Esperanza describes the life of her grandmother and how it was made into sadness when her "husband" made her his wife.

"She looked out the window her whole life, the way so many women sit their sadness on an elbow." (p.11)

Her grandmother was kidnapped and her whole life was spent with a man she did not love. This also shows how women were treated. They really had no choice in who they could marry and because they are women people(men) think they cant do anything. That is what windows represents in this vignette. The longing and redemption of what could have been a better life for people.
    In the vignette No Speak English,Esperanza talks about a lady who misses her hometown and never comes out of her apartment.

."She sits all day  by the window and plays the Spanish radio and and sings all the homesick songs about her country in a voice that songs like a seagull."

The lady is sad about not being in her country and comforts herself by singing. The window in this situation is significant because it shows the loss of someone or something. The woman in the story has lost her country  and longs to go back. The window is a way of people to see what they are missing in their life.
     In Sally, Esperanza describes a girl named Sally who has a very hard life. She was pretty at first and all the guys like her. But, to others and her parents it was dangerous for her to be that beautiful. She seemed to have a problem that made her life change. She was not the same person after a while. It is described here, what sally wanted,

"And if you opened the little window latch and gave it  it a shove , the windows would swing open, all the sky would come in." (p.82)

Here, the window is the significance of what is the future. The girl, sally is having a really hard time in her life, but Esperanza imagines what she wants. The window is like a different path or life that someone can take and make it their own . It gives people a chance from their old life to have a better one, like the one in their dreams.
These are the vignettes that had significance in windows.