在英語里，我名字的意思是希望。在西班牙語里，它意味著太多的字母。它意味著哀傷，意味著等待。它就像數字九。一種泥濘的色彩。它是每到星期天早晨，爸爸刮鬍子時播放的墨西哥唱片，嗚咽似的歌。

在學校里，他們說我的名字很滑稽，音節好像是鐵皮做的，會碰痛嘴巴里的上顎。可是在西班牙語里，我的名字是更柔和的東西做的，像銀子，沒有妹妹的名字那麼渾厚。她叫瑪格達蕾娜，這名字沒我的美。瑪格達蕾娜回到家裡可以叫成蕾妮。可我總是九*九*藏*書埃斯佩朗莎。

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.

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. ｒeａｄ•99ｃｓｗ.ｃoｍI 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 I don't want to inherit her place by the window.

我想要取一個新的名字，它更像真正的我，那個沒人看到過的我。埃斯佩朗莎換成黎桑德拉或者瑪芮查或者澤澤X。一個像澤澤X的名字就可以了。

它過去是我曾祖母的名字，現在是我的。她也是一個屬馬的女人，和我一樣，生在中國的馬年——如果你生為女人，這會被認為是霉運——可是我想，這是個中國謊，因為，中國人和墨西哥人一樣，不喜歡他們的女人強大。

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 Mexicans, don't like their women strong.

In English my name means hope. In Spanish it means too many letters. It means sadness, it mea九*九*藏*書ns 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, songs like sobbing.

我的曾祖母。要是我見過她多好，女人中的野馬，野得不想嫁人。直到我的曾祖父用麻袋套住她的頭把她扛走。就那樣扛著，好像她是一盞華貴的枝形吊燈。那就是他的辦法。

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 九*九*藏*書sister's name——Magdalena——which is uglier than mine. Magdalena who at least can come home and become Nenny. But I am always Esperanza.

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

後來，她永遠沒有原諒他。她用一生向窗外凝望，像許多女人那樣凝望，胳膊肘支起憂傷。我想知道她是否隨遇而安；是否會為做不成她想做的人而傷懷。埃斯佩朗莎。我繼承了她的名字，可我不想繼承她在窗邊的位置。