Summary of “No Speak English”

The story is narrated by a 14 years old girl, Esperanza. She observed her neighbor across her house did not show since she arrived by a yellow taxi and went up stairs to her new home. She, a mamacita, was a Mexican young wife with a big fat figure but dressing up gorgeously. She and her swaddling baby were brought to the foreign country, the United State, by her hard working husband. She stayed all day inside the house and never came down. She usually listened to the Mexican radio show and sang the homesick songs. She argued with his husband and cried to go “home” often. This is a story related a Spanish-speaking American family. The mamacita refused to speak English, or refused to learn English, maybe this is the true reason why she would not go down stairs to contact with the outside world. It’s a sad story, an unhappy story about the painful migrant.