Describe Julia’s connection to art. Why is it so important to her? What does she feel? (page 44).

Julia’s journals represent her creative self, including her art—poems and stories—and her memories and thoughts. Her current leather-bound journal was a gift from Olga, which action in turn represents quiet Olga’s support for Julia’s artistic endeavors. Amá and Apá, on the other hand, actively destroy Julia’s journals and therefore her creative interior: “I screamed and begged for her to leave my journals alone, but she went through them anyway and left me with only a dozen pages or so. I was hysterical and tried to swipe them from her hands, but Apá held me back…. Life without writing doesn’t feel worth living to me” (207). Julia’s parents believe they are destroying her disobedience by attacking the curse words they can see in the journals, but they are in fact destroying something much deeper and more intrinsic to Julia’s self. She only begins to rebuild this aspect of herself in therapy with Dr. Cooke, when she begins to write poetry again and reassemble a body of creative work.