Her books are classics, and The House on Mango Street (1984) is on all YA reading lists.
I chose a quote from Caramelo to begin the chapter in my book on Leaving San Miguel:
That terrible ache and nostalgia for home when home is gone, and this isn’t it. And the sun so white like an onion. And who the hell thought of placing a city here with no large body of water anyway! In less than three hours we could be at the border, but where’s the border to the past, I ask you, where?~ Sandra Cisneros, Caramelo
There is a reception for her at the U.S. Embassy Residence, to which I was invited, but unfortunately I will be out of town. I would have loved to meet her and to tell her how important her books are to the Los Angeles Public Library and what they have meant to me.
