Salvador (in "Salvador Late or Early") is a small, apologetic boy who has no friends, comes from an very poor neighborhood, and (because his mother has a baby to care for) must get his two younger brothers ready for school, give them breakfast, and lead them by the hands to school and then home again.
In "Mexican Movies," the speaker is a young girl (six or seven years old) who describes a typical Saturday evening with her parents and little brother at a theater that shows Mexican movies. She tells about being sent to the lobby during sexy scenes and describes the furnishings of the theater and lobby and the things sold there; she tells about her favorite movies and talks about the things she and her brother do during the shows. Sometimes, she says, they go to sleep, and when the movie is over their parents carry them home to bed.
"Barbie-Q," set in Chicago in the early 1960s, features a nine- or ten-year-old speaker who talks to her friend directly about their Barbie dolls, their outfits, and the story they always enact with these dolls. One Sunday at a flea market, they find and buy Ken and several more Barbie outfits, friends, and relatives that have been damaged in a fire. These dolls smell smoky and have slight flaws, but the speaker and her friend don't care.
