All the pretty houses.

Cisneros's home.

In 1997 Sandra Cisneros, known best for The House on Mango Street, decided to paint her San Antonio house periwinkle.  She chose the color from the Tejano palette — something with which she was familiar, and which represented a connection to her roots.

The community threw a fit.  Her new neighborhood was of the Tasteful Historic variety; periwinkle was not on the list of “approved” historic colors.  As Cisneros wrote in an appeal to others to substantiate her claim that purple was indeed “historic” for the Tejano inhabitants of yore:

“My life is such a telenovela! One day I painted my house tejano colors; the next day, my house is in all the news, cars swarming by, families having their photos taken in front of my purple casita as if it were the Alamo. The neighbors put up an iced-tea stand and made 10 dollars!”

Opportunistic tea-sellers aside, Cisneros had to duke it out with the local Powers That Be.  It was a battle, but ultimately she won the right to maintain her chosen hue.

This story, which I learned through an interview with the author about a decade ago, sprang to mind the other day on a walk past some of Portland’s more brightly-colored homes.  Remembering that it’s not everywhere one may choose any hue for one’s house, I further appreciated the fact that PDX is bright.

Sure, one could interpret the high concentration as a sort of “Look!  We Portlanders are just wacky!” type cry; but in a rare moment of non-overanalyzing, and resisting all snarkiness: I do declare that these houses are just plain Great.