I know too much of mud.
-- Camino (N/A)

Importance: This is the opening line of the novel, and represents the foreshadowing of what Camino will go through at the end of the novel. At the start of the novel, Camino says this to to the reader in the context of setting the scene and describing her house and neighborhood. She talks about trying to get clean of it, wiping your feet and shoes constantly but the mud is a part of you. When she is assaulted later in the novel, it is in the midst of a thunderstorm with powerful rain, near the beach. After Yahaira takes her home, Yahaira wipes the mud off her feet. This symbolizes how the new sister is helping to wipe away the past, and wipe away the assault. The reader then realizes the opening line meant Camino knew mud intimately, as not only a part of her...