In these four sections, Esperanza begins to welcome her
emerging sexual identity, but a forced kiss makes her anxious and
wary of it. In “Chanclas,” she is proud that one particular boy
watches her dance. In “Hips,” Esperanza’s is the only jump-roping
rhyme that explicitly expresses a desire for hips. In the beginning
of “The First Job,” Esperanza comes home wet because she has let
a boy push her into the water flowing out of an open fire hydrant,
the first sign of any outright flirting. However, this seemingly
healthy and normal course of sexual maturity derails at the end
of that section, when Esperanza’s friendly peck on the cheek turns
into a violent kiss on the mouth that is forced on her by an older
man. Here, sexuality brings about violence, while in the previous
two sections it was celebrated with dances and poetry.
