1I like Alicia because once she gave me a little leather purse with the word GUADALAJARA stitched on it, which is home for Alicia, and one day she will go back there. But today she is listening to my sadness because I don't have a house.

2You live right here, 4006 Mango, Alicia says and points to the house I am ashamed of.

3No, this isn't my house say and shake my head as if shaking could undo the year I've lived here. I don't belong. I don't ever want to come from here. You have a home, Alicia, and one day you'll go there, to a town you remember, but me I never had a house, not even a photograph . . . only one I dream of.

4No, Alicia says. Like it or not you are Mango Street, and one day you'll come back too.

5Not me. Not until somebody makes it better.

6Who's going to do it? The mayor?

7And the thought of the mayor coming to Mango Street makes me laugh out loud.

8Who's going to do it? Not the mayor.