Esperanza Cordero and her parents, sister, and brothers move into a house on Mango Street, after having lived in numerous other locations in Chicago, only some of which Esperanza remembers. At least this latest house is the Corderos' own, but in other respects, it is not the house Esperanza would have hoped for. Esperanza meets some of her neighbors — Cathy (whose family is about to move out because the neighborhood is going downhill), Lucy and Rachel (two sisters who live across the street), a boy named Tito, another named Meme Ortiz (whose family has moved into Cathy's house), yet another boy named Louie, Louie's cousin Marin, and Louie's other cousin.
Esperanza gets to know Marin a little better and learns that she is hoping to marry a boy in Puerto Rico but that she is still interested in other boys. Esperanza reflects that people who don't live in the neighborhood are afraid to come into it, whereas those who live there feel quite safe but are afraid to go into other neighborhoods. She tells about the Vargas kids, whose father left and whose mother can't control them, and about Alicia, who is going to the university and at the same time keeping house for her father. Esperanza and her friends hang out, looking at clouds, talking idly. A woman gives Esperanza, Lucy, and Rachel three pairs of high-heeled shoes, which they wear around the neighborhood.
Esperanza pleads with her mother to let her take her lunch to school, but when she is allowed to do so, she doesn't enjoy it. She goes to a baptismal party for a baby cousin and dances with her uncle. She, Nenny, Lucy, and Rachel talk about getting hips, and Esperanza gets her first job, in a photo-developing store. Her grandfather dies in Mexico, her Aunt Lupe dies in Chicago, and Esperanza goes to a fortune-teller who informs her that she will have a home in the heart. At a dance, her friend Marin meets a man who is later injured in a hit-and-run accident; Marin waits in the hospital while he dies. Esperanza describes two neighborhood adults whom she finds interesting: Edna's daughter Ruthie and a jukebox repairman named Earl. She tells about a boy — Sire — who sometimes stares at her, and talks about her relationship to four trees growing from the sidewalk in front of her house.
