My Name by Sandra Cisneros and adapted by Mark Ravinsky

In English my name means hope. In Spanish it means too many letters. It means sadness, it means waiting. It is like the number nine. A muddy color. It is the Mexican records my father plays on Sunday mornings when he is shaving, song like sobbing.

In English my first name can mean anything from war-like and manly to gentle and soft. In translation, my last name means rabbi, teacher. To everyone else it means Russian, Polish, Yugoslavian, anything with Slavic descent, really. It is like the number four. But also like the number eight. It is muddy color on one side. Clear on the other. It is like the Russian and Hebrew songs I hear my father play upstairs in his room. I can understand some of them, but others are muffled by distance and closed doors.

It was my great-grandmother’s name and now it is mine. She was a horse woman too, born like me in the Chinese year of the horse – which is supposed to be bad luck if you’re born female-but I think this is a Chinese lie because the Chinese, like the Mexican, don’t like their women strong.

My first name is my great-grandfather’s on my mother’s side, and now it is mine. He was born, unlike me, in the Chinese year of the Ox. But, like me, he was not a superstitious man. He was a lucky man. Kind, loyal, educated and family-oriented. He loved his wife.

My great-grandmother. I would’ve liked to have known her, a wild horse of a woman, so wild she wouldn’t marry. Until my great-grandfather threw a sack over her head and carried her off. Just like that, as if she were a fancy chandelier. That’s the way he did it.

My great-grandmother. I would’ve liked to have known her. Everything she did, she did for her husband. Not because she was subservient, but because she loved him. She was educated and hardworking. My great-grandfather appreciated her.

And the story goes she never forgave him. She looked out the window her whole life, the way so many women sit their sadness on an elbow. I wonder if she made the best with what she got or was she sorry because she couldn’t be all the things she wanted to be. Esperanza. I have inherited her name, but don’t want to inherit her place by the window.

And the story goes she loved him to her death. After he went away to fight in World War II I can imagine her looking out the window, the way so many women back then sat, their longing and worry on an elbow. I wonder if she became ill so soon after news of his death by chance, or was she worried she couldn’t be all the things she wanted to be without him.

At school they say my name funny as if the syllables were made out of tin and hurt the roof of your mouth. But in Spanish my name is made out of a softer something, like silver, not quite as thick as sister’s name-Magdalena-which is uglier than mine. Magdalena who at least can come home and become Nenny. But I am always Esperanza.

At school they say my name in a questioning manner, as if the syllables were supposed to match up with the red in my hair. I proudly tell them I am Russian. No offense to the Irish. But I will always be Mark Ravinsky, Russian and Jewish.

I would like to baptize myself under a new name, a name more like the real me, the one nobody sees. Esperanza as Lisandra or Maritza or Zeze the X. Yes. Something like Zeze the X will do.

I am lucky to have my name. It is made of history. My name is the real me. When I have children I would like to name them after my grandparents.My children as Mikhael Ravinsky or Tanya Ravinsky. Yes. Mikhael and Tanya will do.