frijoles cooked beans; refried beans.
salamander a limbed, tailed amphibian with a soft, moist skin.
double-dutch or “double Dutch”; a children's game of jump rope in which two turners swing two ropes simultaneously in a crisscross pattern for the person jumping.
300 Spartans an American movie made in the 1950s about the Battle of Thermopylae (in the Persian War) where, in 480 b.c., a Persian army commanded by Xerxes destroyed a Spartan army led by Leonidas. The Spartans, who held the pass against tremendous odds, became an exemplum of bravery and physical courage.
chanclas (Spanish) plural of chancla, a type of open shoe.
“that boy who is my cousin by first communion or something el” nonsense; “first communion” is what Catholics call the occasion on which a person first receives the sacrament of the Eucharist, usually as a child of about seven, so Esperanza is probably searching for a phrase here (“first cousin once removed,” perhaps) and coming up with the wrong one, maybe suggested by the fact that she is at a party held in a church basement and celebrating a sacrament.
