Who is elenita?

Elenita is the local witch. Esperanza visits the "witch lady," a mother who works from her kitchen lit by candles, a plaster saint, voodoo charms and a cross. Esperanza comes with her most important question- if she will ever have a house of her own. The reading is interrupted by the rowdy children and by Esperanza's pondering of how much Elenita knows how to cure, from headaches to broken hearts. When her reading finishes, Esperanza is disappointed with her answer, that she will have a home in the heart.