The House on Mango Street Soundtrack: "Scars to Your Beautiful"

"She just wants to be beautiful

She goes unnoticed, she knows no limits

She craves attention, she praises an image

She prays to be sculpted by the sculptor

Oh, she don't see the light that's shining

Deeper than the eyes can find it

Maybe we have made her blind

So she tries to cover up her pain and cut her woes away

'Cause cover girls don't cry after their face is made

But there's a hope that's waiting for you in the dark

You should know you're beautiful just the way you are

And you don't have to change a thing, the world could change its heart"

"The stories the boys tell in the coatroom, they're not true. You lean against the schoolyard fence alone with your eyes closed as if no one was watching, as if no one could see you standing there, Sally. What do you think about when you close your eyes like that? And why do you always have to go straight home after school? You become a different Sally. You pull your skirt straight, you rub the blue paint off your eyelids. You don't laugh, Sally. You look at your feet and walk fast to the house you can't come out from." ~ The House on Mango Street, Page 82

I chose "Scars to Your Beautiful" by Alessia Cara and specifically the verses above to represent the chapter "Sally", represented by this passage from page 82. In this chapter, the audience is introduced to Sally, a notoriously beautiful girl who wears a lot of makeup and black scandalous clothes. She seems to take pride in her appearance but also realizes that she must go to these lengths to get people, especially boys, to notice her. And to make matters worse, her religiously conservative father disdains how she presents herself in public and is forced to stay inside as much as possible.

Scars to Your Beautiful reflects Sally's struggle to balance the community's expectations for her appearance and behavior with her own self-acceptance. I especially like the verses "she don't see the light that's shining, deeper than the eyes can find it, maybe we have made her blind" in conjunction with the Mango Street passage because it not only speaks to Sally's untapped potential but also the community's hand in suppressing it because she is a poor Latina girl.

Alessia Cara's song and Sally's struggle in this vignette highlight Mango Street's tendency throughout the novel to sexualize and suppress women based solely on their appearance and but also recognizing how their potential for self-confidence and self-actualization could come to fruition if they ever escaped their oppressive neighborhood or somehow changed the world's heart regarding how they value women.