A note is in order on Esperanza's assessment of her neighborhood in "Those Who Don't." Some readers might infer that Cisneros is painting too rosy a picture of these urban streets, when she has Esperanza say that those who live there are not afraid of what might happen to them in their own neighborhood. In fact, Esperanza seems to see most of what goes on around her and knows there is safety for children in numbers. Her perception of her neighborhood as a basically safe place for its inhabitants is correct: In the mid-1960s, guns are relatively scarce, and the high-powered weapons that will appear in later decades are still far in the future. There is indeed drug use: Alcohol and marijuana are relatively common, heroin less so (and heroin users are dangerous mostly to themselves), but cocaine in powder form is only beginning to reappear as a street drug after many decades, and crack cocaine is still unheard of. There are indeed street gangs, but these are not as dominant as they will become in later years. The Vargas kids, who respect nothing and no one, are still in training for their lives of crime, should they survive so long; the rest of the people in the neighborhood — whose Latino culture includes a strong, traditional code of honor and respect for family — look out for each other. Esperanza is probably sheltered by her family (as Sandra Cisneros has said she was sheltered by hers), but basically she is right: Stifling as her neighborhood can be to a young woman's potential, she is about as safe there as any girl in any neighborhood has ever been.
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