When describing her family’s apartment, Julia frequently mentions the cockroaches that scurry about the floor. When Julia mentions to Apa that she wants to be a writer, his only concern is that she “make enough money so [she] didn’t have to live in an apartment full of roaches” (121). The roaches are an ever-present reminder of the Reyes’ poverty, and no matter how much Amá cleans the house or how much the family does their “cockroach dance” to stomp them out, they never disappear for long. In kindergarten, a cockroach crawled out of Julia’s shoe once, and since then, she has had a constant fear that it will happen again, reminding her and those around her just how poor her living conditions are.

Julia has an insatiable appetite, both literally and symbolically. Because her family is poor, there is rarely much at home for Julia to eat. Even with the few staple ingredients Amá does keep at home, Julia never learned to cook, which only serves as another reminder of her inadequacy compared to Olga. Julia’s hunger is also a metaphor for her ambition; she is desperate to escape her present circumstances and eager to devour what the rest of the world has to offer outside of her insular Mexican bubble of Chicago.