A Study Guide for Sandra Cisneros's "Geraldo No Last Name"

By Gale and Cengage

A Study Guide for Sandra Cisneros's "Geraldo No Last Name", excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Short Stories for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Short Stories for Studentsfor all of your research needs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cengage Learning - Gale
• Release date: May 15, 2018
• ISBN: 9781535846202

Book preview

18

Geraldo No Last Name

Sandra Cisneros

1984

Introduction

In Sandra Cisneros's vignette Geraldo No Last Name, published as part of The House on Mango Street (1984), a young woman goes out dancing on Saturday night only to witness the death of her dance partner, Geraldo, by a hit-and-run accident. Though she only met Geraldo that night, Marin accompanies him to the emergency room, where she is questioned by police when it is revealed that he has no identification, no papers of any kind, and no last name. Geraldo is an undocumented immigrant who works hard to send money home to his family each week. But because he is an invisible man in America, his family will never know what became of him. Cisneros shines her light on a character who lives in the shadows of American society in Geraldo No Last Name, asking her readers to consider why a man like Geraldo should be stripped of his identity and forced to live like a criminal. Marin, too, is faced with the fragility of human life as she waits in the emergency room for a man she did not know and has no reason to care deeply about. Yet she waits all the same, stuck in place by the incomprehensible events of a night that has tied her forever to a man without a last name.

Author Biography

Cisneros was born in Chicago, Illinois, on December 20, 1954, the only daughter among seven siblings. Her father was Mexican and her mother Chicana, or Mexican American. The family traveled between Chicago and Mexico City frequently during her childhood, to visit her paternal grandparents. Cisneros began writing as a child and in high school was named editor of the school's literary magazine. She attended Loyola University