《芒果街上的小屋》 一本優美純凈的小書，一本“詩小說”。由幾十個短篇組成，語言清澈如流水，點綴著零落的韻腳和新奇的譬喻，如一首首長歌短調，各自成韻，又彼此鉤連，匯聚出一個清晰世界，各樣雜沓人生。所有的講述都歸于一個敘述中心：居住在芝加哥拉美移民社區芒果街上的女孩埃斯佩朗莎。生就對弱的同情心和對美的感覺力，她用清澈的眼打量周圍的世界，用美麗稚嫩的語言講述成長、滄桑、生命的美好與不易和年輕的熱望與夢想，夢想有一所自己的房子，夢想在寫作中追尋自我，獲得自由和幫助別人的能力。

　　The First Job
　　In my job I had to wear white gloves.I was supposed to match negatives with their prints,just look at the picture and look for the same one on the negative strip, put it in the envelope, and do the next one.That`s all. I didn`t know where these envelopes were coming from or where they were going.I just did what I was told.

　　It was real easy, and Iguess I wouldn`t have minded it except that you got tired after a while and I didn`t know if I could sit down or not,and then I started sitting down only when the two ladies next to me did. After a while they started to laugh and came up to me and said I could sit when I wanted to ,and I said I knew.

　　第一份工作　　　　　　　
　　我做事時要戴上白手套。他們讓我做的是把底片和相片配好，就是對著相片在底片的條上找到那張的底片，把它放進信封里，然后再配下一張。就這些。我不知道那些信封從哪里來，要到哪里去。我只是按吩咐的去做。

　　真的好容易。我想我本來不會介意的，可干了一會我有點累，不知道是否可以坐，于是就看著旁邊的兩位女士，她們坐下來的時候我才坐。過了一會她們笑起來，走過來跟我說可以想坐就坐的，我說我知道。