Blog Post #4 Topic #4 Amy Joo

In the short story, “Woman Hollering Creek,” Sandra Cisneros depicts the experience of a Mexican woman who immigrated to the United States with her new husband. The woman, Cleofilas Hernandez, imagined her future husband to be like a character in her telenovela before arriving in the United States; however, he was complaining and demanding, often leaving both physical and emotional scars on her. Throughout the narrative, Cisneros clearly depicts the honest struggles that many immigrants experience: the possibility of confronting the disgrace at home country and the problems that language and culture barriers entail.

Cisneros deliberately shows Cleofilas’ initial decision to not give up on her husband in order to depict that immigrants try hard to overcome their struggles to not put disgrace upon their family at home. Despite all of her effort to provide for her family and domestic responsibilities in the foreign country, her husband was abusive, and she could only react passively by feeling stunned and speechless. Cisneros explains that Cleofilas was afraid of the gossips of her neighbors in Mexico such as “Where’s [her] husband?” and “‘Coming home like that with one baby on her hip and one in the oven’ (Cisneros) is a disgrace.” Similarly, when I first came to the United States and had to adapt to this new environment, I was burdened by the language difference as well. But I still pushed myself because I did not want to face the disgrace in my home country due to my lack of perseverance. Although Cleofilas ultimately decided to go back to Mexico, she endured her suffering by reminding herself the possibility of bringing disgrace on her family in Mexico. In addition, Cisneros shows that Cleofilas’ reason to leave for home changed from avoiding her husband’s abuse to adopting the new lifestyle of an independent woman, free from the society’s expectations of women.  

Cisneros illustrates that language and culture barriers lead immigrants to be quiet about their pain, but people with the same nationality assist immigrants to overcome the struggles. For instance, Cleofilas was not able to express her emotional struggles to others and hid all the scars from her husband’s abuse until she met a Spanish speaking doctor. Cisneros uses this incident as an example to show the impact of the Spanish speaking community through Cleofilas’ opportunity to access the support of the doctor and Felice. The author illustrates how communities that share the language and culture provide better comfort to immigrants. As an immigrant myself, my Korean church was a shelter that allowed me to better adjust to the new environment and enabled me to connect with new friends of the same nationality and language. Cisneros effectively demonstrates how the community helps Cleofilas to come out of her own cave and to live with freedom. Given the changing times, my experience parallels Cleofilas’ struggles and her access to getting help.

In addition to Cisneros’ examples of immigrants’ experiences in the United States, I would also talk about Cleofilas’ possible struggle with teaching Mexican culture and the Spanish language to her children if I were the author instead. As a Mexican immigrant living in the United States, Cleofilas is likely to struggle with educating her children to navigate multiple cultures: those of both Mexico and the United States. This is because kids learn English at school and communicate in Spanish at home. Thus, they would be conflicted and need more assistance at home. Having to learn two languages and cultures at an early age, many immigrants suffer from learning cultural and language boundaries; therefore, showing an example of the hardship would illustrate another part of immigrants’ experience.

Throughout the story, Cisneros shows some of the problems that immigrants have to overcome. With the responsibility of succeeding in a foreign country, they tend to become shy to share their feelings. And due to the language barrier, they cannot truly express how they feel, thereby not getting the appropriate treatment for their suffering. Thankfully, at the end of the story, the community of the same nationality helped Cleofilas to be independent from the abuse of her husband and to ignore what others think of her in her town. By illustrating a foreign woman who changes from the shy immigrant who could not stand against her husband ultimately to the woman who is able to shout loudly as she can when crossing the creek, Cisneros does a great job expressing the burdens of immigrants.

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