Sisters

"Nenny and I don't look like sisters . . . not right away . . . . But me and Nenny, we are more alike than you would know."

--(Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street, 17)

This line is the story of my life.

My sister Tesia is two years older than me and does not look like me at all. Period. She's small with darker skin than me, brown hair, and caramel eyes. I'm tall, blonde, blue-eyed, white. (Ok, you can't really see it in this picture cause she's wearing high-heels and the flash makes us look almost the same color...)

When people find out we're sisters, they never believe us. Latinos have nicknamed her "the brown girl," which I couldn't figure out because they are waaay darker than she is. But then I realized that they thought it was weird that we didn't look like each other because when Latinos have babies, they all have brown skin with dark hair and dark eyes. They don't get some blonde kids and some brown-haired kids.

But even though we don't look alike, we think exactly the same way. Sometimes its really freaky how similar our brains are. It's almost like we're the same person, and yet, we're really different at the same time. It's a weird phenomenon. 

When we sing, our voices blend together really, really well. Even though we don't have the same voice. It's a weird phenomenon.

We like the same things, but our personalities are very different. It's a weird phenomenon.

Anyway, I feel like this theme of being really similar and yet so different applies to me and Esperanza as well. I have never been an immigrant in a community surrounded by lots of other Hispanics. But I have felt what it's like to be a girl growing up. I'm not a Chicana, but I grew up with a mixture of cultures too. I didn't grow up in a city, but I have felt the strain of poverty around me. I just felt a connection to her as I read The House on Mango Street. We're similar and yet very different at the same time.

Esperanza and I don't look like sisters . . . not right away . . . . But me and Esperanza, we are more alike than you would know.