How has Julia changed over the novel?

When we first meet Julia Reyes, she is a fifteen-year-old American high school student, who struggles to find a place for herself in her Mexican-American family. Unlike the other members of her family, she does not put family first. She sees her family as too conservative, too traditional. She also feels as if she cannot live up to the precedents set by her older sister, who is desceased. She dislikes living in her older sister's shadow, and she desires independence.

Julia also has liberal values, participates in activism, and has artistic ambitions. She hates injustice of any kind, and she challenges the Catholic Church.... at family gatherings. There is nothing traditional about her. Over the course of the novel, however, we come to see that Julia has many issues of her own.... issues that cause her to have a breakdown, after which, she must come to terms with her familial relationships and forge the connection she felt she lacked, especially with her father.