Meganconnection

Old Maids -By Sandra Cisneros

My cousins and I, we don't marry. We're too old by Mexican standards.

And the relatives have long suspected we can't anymore in white.

My cousins and I, we're all old maids at thirty.

Who won't dress children, and never saints-- though we undress them.

The aunts, they've given up on us. No longer nudge--You're next.

Instead-- What happened in your childhood? What left you all mean teens? Who hurt you, honey?

But we've studied marriages too long--

Aunt Ariadne, Tia Vashti, Comadre Penelope, querida Malintzin, Senora Pumpkin Shell--

lessons that served us well.

Sandra Cisneros likes to perpetuate and also critize latino stereotypes in her poetry. This painting reminded me of the different aspects to her writing and how they may contradict one another sometimes. In the poem "Old maids," we see her perpetuate the mexican standard of marriage at a young age and of women as housewives, but then we also see her critize that same stereotype through her and her cousins who dont fit that criteria.



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