House on Mango Street : In-Class: Home and Personal Identity

Esperanza briefly describes the previous apartments in which she and her family have lived. However, she never dwells on them. They are a small segment of her history, but they are not as significant as her House on Mango Street. The previous apartments only come to represent the age before Esperanza's "coming of age," which occurs on Mango Street.
Once she moves to Mango Street she is ashamed of her house. Simply pointing into the general direction of her neighborhood gives her a sense of embarrassment. Her home represents more than just a building though. Her house is part of a neighborhood, which belongs to a certain ethnic group, which in turn is part of a specific social class. She is therefore not only embarrassed of the building she and her family enter and exit daily, but of everything that surrounds it.The buildings in which she lives, or the places in which she is in, come to represent her stages in life.
In the end of the Bildungsroman, and the end of her coming of age, Esperanza realizes that her House on Mango Street has become a part of her. It has grown to belong to her personal identity. She learns that she will come back to Mango Street to get others out, and this is what she has done by writing this book. She has written of those who still live on Mango Street, or a place like Mango Street to get their story out into the world.