Esperanza Rising: The Origin of the Proverb

“Wait a little while and the fruit will fall into your hand”

This is a quote often used throughout the entire book, starting as something that Esperanza’s father said to her as a young girl and continues to be used throughout the book.   I was curious about the origin of this quote, whether it is truly a Mexican proverb or derived from somewhere else.  By conducting a quick Google search, I could immediately find that there have been several different uses for this quote, the most famous of which is in Esperanza Rising.

            However, one interesting connection to the quote was another quote from the Bible, with a similar meaning.  From the Bible, a passage from James 5:7 is quoted as, “Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord.  See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains.”  While this quote is not a direct match, it was the only possible origin of this quote other than the book itself. 

            This leaves one to question, does the Mexican proverb come from the influence of the Bible or is it simply a similar sentiment found amongst cultures around the world? 

Esperanza Rising: Is this book historically accurate?

Esperanza Rising takes place during the years 1930 and 1931.  Pamela Muñoz Ryan sets the scene in Mexico, clearly describing the richness of the land, the crops harvested and the delicious foods, but also the turmoil between the rich and poor.  In the beginning of the book, Esperanza’s father is killed by bandits who do not believe that there should be such a large divide between the rich and poor. This gap is also clearly portrayed when Esperanza and her mother leave Aguascalientes, fleeing from her uncles.  On the train out of Mexico, Esperanza shuns a poor women and child, which once again shows the divide she is used to between the rich and the poor.

            Another aspect of this book that Ryan sets up is the culture of the United States at this point in history when Esperanza and her mother arrive in California.  Upon their arrival, they discover that people in general are poor, do not have much money, have small houses to live in and work very hard for little money.  The work conditions of the people in the book are poor, often working in cold, heat, or extreme weather.  However, in the camp, people enjoyed occasional parties as a special occasion and saved their money, dreaming of getting jobs that would someday make them rich.  Amongst this dreaming was the danger of working through the strikes that happened in the work-sheds when people became unhappy about wages and the conditions in which they had to work.  Through all of these details and events, Ryan sets the stage for a very clear context of the events in the book, which led me to wonder how much of these events and details are historically accurate?

            While many of the small details about life as a migrant worker do check out to be true, I discovered with a little bit of research that the place where Esperanza and her mother go to live in a worker’s camp, Arvin, California, was not in fact opened as a camp for workers until 1937, six years after the close of the book.  However, the town’s Wikipedia page states that a large portion of the town’s diversity does come from Mexican immigrants, as well as “Okies” who came to work during the late 1900s.  Overall, the historical accuracy of the events, including the strikes, the fiestas and the conditions of the workers match up to the descriptions in the book, the book only places these events a few years earlier than reality.

To learn more about life as a migrant worker, as well as the town history of Arvin, check out these links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arvin,_California

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/afctshtml/tsme.html  

Esperanza Rising: Author's Biography

Pamela Muñoz Ryan grew up in Bakersfield, California.  Growing up, she loved to read and eventually became the editor of her high school’s newspaper, setting the stage for her life in literature early on. However, during her college years, while she knew that she would like to do something involving literature, she thought that she would end up being a teacher. She worked for many years as a teacher in bilingual schools before returning to school for a degree in Post-Secondary Education, hoping teaching children’s literature.  It was while she was getting this degree that she began to write children’s stories and has been writing ever since.

            I had originally delved into the author’s personal history, wondering if the story of Esperanza Rising was related to a personal story at all and learned that this story is in fact based upon her grandmother’s life, though more information was hard to find.  However, to quote from her webpage, Muñoz Ryan writes because she "wants the reader to turn the page!"

For a more detailed biography, check out http://www.pammunozryan.com/, the source of my information!