The House on Mango Street Introduction by John Phillip Santos (Everyman's Library Contemporary Classics Series)

Another is a book called The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. It's an amazing book, a vignette about this teenage girl, her upbringing, and it ties in a lot about what it means to live in inadequate housing and people's dreams and aspirations about housing.

July 1st, 1972, the Doobie Brothers release the album Taloose Street.

The House on Mango Street by the Mexican-American writer Sandra Cisneros has been taught in high schools across the U.S. for decades.

I love how she strikingly fiercely has given voice to the choice to be single, and single or not, to know solitude as sacred.

This one is a favorite of many of the first generation Latinx young people who are in our audience for this conversation at our studio in Minneapolis.

In my case, I couldn't tell anyone about it because of the six brothers and I wanted to protect this dream, not have it savaged.

House on Mongo Street taught me that and I share it with everyone. It's true.

Well what happened when I was in sixth grade? We moved and I like to tell the story of how lucky we were that we had a tremendous winter in 1966, must have been about then. And the pipes in our house froze just like the characters in the house on Mango Street.

But unlike the characters in the house on Mango Street, we were delighted by our new house. We were so thrilled that we got to go to another house where you could turn on the faucets and water came out. You could flush away the waste. It was just great improvement over our last place.

Well, I think young girls especially want to look sexy, but they don't realize what that brings. And the discomfort and the danger and the lack of being seen for who you are. It's a lot of trouble.

But when I was writing it, I was the young woman in her 20s searching for her politics and her direction in life. So I was looking for my feminism and using Esperanza to assist me. But now I'm reworking it in a deeper level.

House on Mongo Street taught me that. And I share it with everyone. It's true. Some people do it with their students, some people with their children. But I wrote House when I was in a moment of powerlessness.

He was extremely bright. I think his IQ was 140 something. This was a guy that had, if he wasn't mentally ill, he could have been a Michael Corleone.

Richard could take somebody's identity and take it as his own easily.

He could charm you. He could do whatever he did to attract you. And you would be completely in the dark unless you knew him beforehand. If you were to meet him, it would be like meeting any other ordinary person you might meet on the street. Who might just be a little bit more polite. Any ask of believe at the beaver okay hello Mrs. Clear Howard, you today boy. You look particularly nice. Oh that your hair looks great today. Did you get your nails done. That, that was Richard.

Most people who listen to Judy's story believe that she was groomed by Richard. Judy was a young woman. Still a teenager and she was in a vulnerable place in her life. Richard may have seen her as an easy target.

He was very much aware of what institutionalization was and what it could do to a person. And he made a concerted effort to be as different in terms of what you might expect an ordinary mental patient to behave.