La Bruja

"La Bruja" ("The Witch"), as the girls call her, is the racist woman who lives in the apartment underneath the family in New York City. She calls them "spics" and tells them to "go back to where you came from."

Carlos

Child of Sofia and Otto. His birth-the first boy in two generations-helps reunite Papi and Sofia.

Dona Charito

A German woman who lives in the same neighborhood as the family in the Dominican Republic. "She was an Islander only by her marriage to Don Jose," having met him in Madrid on a tour of the Prado, the national museum. Dona Charito is an artist who requires strict obedience to her teaching methods when she conducts art classes for the cousins. She did not want to take students at first, but payment in American dollars changed her mind. Many consider her husband Don Jose to be crazy...