This group of chapters begins with Louie's cousin Marin and ends with Alicia. Although Marin will all but disappear from the book after our introduction to her, she and Alicia — and Rosa Vargas — are important in that they are all older than Esperanza, all potential "role models" because they are women she knows, female participants in her culture, at a time when she has begun to turn away from her own mother and female relatives and to look elsewhere for clues about who she will be. Marin, although in fact still a child in many ways, has entered the world of womanhood before Esperanza and has become one of the younger girl's guides. As such, although Esperanza's parents would certainly do their best to discourage such a development, Marin represents a very real possibility for Esperanza's future.
Before the 1970s, many working-class girls, urban and rural, stopped attending school after the eighth grade. Abortion was illegal, bearing a child out of wedlock was considered shameful, and young women frequently married at 14 or 15; a 13-year-old bride was not unheard of, especially in communities where many parents and grandparents were immigrants to the U.S. from places where an educated woman was something of a curiosity in any but the wealthiest classes. Given this, Marin must be very young indeed to want to conceal her marriage plans from her family: perhaps a year older than Esperanza, 12-going-on-13 and physically mature for her age; or perhaps two years older than Esperanza and emotionally younger than her age-mates. In any case, Marin's family in Puerto Rico has sent her to live with an aunt in the U.S. for some reason, and now the aunt's family says she's "too much trouble" — despite the fact that she baby-sits while her aunt works — and wants to send her back. That trouble sounds like boy trouble, probably the same kind of boy trouble that got Marin sent to live with her aunt in the first place. Her family, fearing an unwanted pregnancy, separated her from her jobless boyfriend; now her aunt would like to get Marin off her hands in the same condition she arrived in. And Marin is a boy-crazy girl.
