1. What phenomenon is Esperanza describing in “Hips”? What does she mean when she says that, “One day you wake up and there they are,” and “[y]ou gotta know what to do with hips when you get them”? 2. Why are there so many conflicting descriptions of Earl’s wife in “The Earl of Tennessee”? Whom are the various people probably describing? 3. What condition or characteristic might Esperanza be suggesting in her description of Ruthie? What details support this implication? 4. What is Esperanza implying when she says that the people Geraldo left behind in his home country will “wonder, shrug, remember” because, after he “went north,” they “never heard from him again”? 5. Where and how is synesthesia used in “Born Bad”? 6. What does Elenita mean by “a house made of heart”?