The mean grandma
Reyna remembers a doubly frustrating fate. Her mother left them with their grandmother to go be up north in America where she could help Reyna's father to earn money, but without a good way to communicate, Reyna remembers feeling perfectly abandoned and trapped. That would not have been the end of the world, perhaps, except that their grandmother ends up being a mean lady who bothers the kids about money and mistreats them. She does not properly take care of the children, and they all get ringworm and lice. The mean grandmother is a living symbol for what life was like for them. Instead of a loving mother, they get a grouchy old lady who mistreats them.
The preferred cousin
As if to symbolize that life is truly unfair, their mean grandmother is not actually always mean. There is another cousin, Elida, whom the grandmother just adores. Whatever she wants, the answer is yes, and the girl gets special treatment, even in front of the other cousins who are sometimes literally starving and covered in lice. The cousin also symbolizes what they hate most about their situation, because she makes fun of them for it. She and all her little friends yell "Orphans!" whenever they pass by.
The border as symbol
Because of the parents' decision to do migrant work and send the money home, the children grow up with the border as a symbol in their psychology. What is up there past the north? What is life like in America? The border becomes a symbol for the unknown, which might be better and might be worse. When their mother comes home, her story about what happened was completely different than what she said when she left. When they finally emigrate north, their father abuses them, and they realize they are in chaos.
The quinceañera
So, for the longest time, these siblings wondered whether perhaps there was something wrong with them. Anyone with siblings in an abusive situation knows that the sibling relationships can become dysfunctional very rapidly. Under their father's mean treatment, the girls start competing for his love, and Reyna loses. When her sister throws her a quinceañera without her father's permission, against his command, the sister proves that she knows they are pitted against each other because of abuse. This is a symbol that they love each other and will empathize with each other.
The first college graduate
By graduating college, the central figure of this memoir proves that the damage of abuse does not have to be permanently crippling. The writer explains in the epilogue that she held her father's hand as he died, and she realized that they were truly family. But his abuse set her back. By becoming the first college graduate in her family, she redeems and validates the family by showing that she endured her mistreatment. This should be a symbol of hope to any reader who feels as though they are too damaged to succeed. The accomplishment is proof that people can heal from even serious hopelessness.
