Graciela, whoever identity form “sophistication,” is the clinic medical practitioner whom, for example Felice, enjoys refuted traditional sex roles

Dolores

Dolores, whose name means “sadness,” is Cleofilas’ next-door neighbor on the right. The woman is a widow exactly who stays in a property packed with incense and you will candles, mourning their particular partner as well as 2 dry sons. She expands immense sunflowers and you may sad-smelling flowers so you can enhance their brief graves about regional cemetery. She worries about Cleofilas along with her baby providing ill once they is actually previously call at the night time heavens where the ghostly Los angeles Llorona will discover them.

Felice

Felice try an independent, demanding woman who owns her very own vehicle and you may that is ready to greatly help most other feamales in worry. As well as the medical center physician, Graciela, she conspires to simply help Cleofilas escape from their abusive spouse. Felice was a female who denies antique sex spots and you may increasingly and you may courageously defends women who was swept up into the minimal, old-fashioned lifetime. She tranforms the fresh new holler off Lady Hollering Creek away from a-cry away from soreness or rage in order to a scream away from laughs and you will liberation.

Graciela

She takes new step to obtain Cleofilas away from their particular husband by the getting in touch with Felice to operate a vehicle the brand new battered woman towards the coach depot during the San Antonio.

Cleofilas Enriqueta DeLeon Hernandez

Cleofilas is actually an earlier, innocent Mexican woman that have much curiosity and you can a head packed with hopes for a longevity of love and you may hobbies derived from their unique dear courses, song words, and you can detergent operas. Whenever their particular dad offers their own in marriage to a guy regarding “el otro lado”-the other area of the edging, she hastily produces their particular wedding dress, gathers flowers for their unique makeshift bouquet, and you may goes out-of toward “man this lady has waited their particular life time to own” discover “passion in its finest crystalline essence,” perhaps the passion feminine commonly pay for having “nice aches.” After their unique husband, Juan Pedro, starts to discipline their particular, she remains silent regardless if she shudders at the idea out-of all dead women she reads regarding regarding the push. She realizes just how dangerous their particular situation is actually, but pleasure suppress their own out of back again to their own dad in the Mexico. “Where’s the husband?” she knows they might query. Cleofilas in the course of time musters sufficient bravery to go out of, no matter if she get help from Graciela and you can Felice. Relying on the strength of these women, whom Cleofilas finds out fascinating, she renders Juan Pedro about and production so you’re able to her former lives.

Juan Pedro Martinez Sanchez

Juan Pedro is Cleofilas’s abusive, alcoholic spouse whom simply desires to get married their young Mexican bride rapidly or take their own back again to his lifetime of poverty during the Seguin, Colorado. Here he can restart their practice of consuming and you may carousing having his nasty-mouthed friends from the local ice house. Appropriate its matrimony, he shows himself is faithless, criminal, and small so you’re able to shout rips out of guilt and you may shame, being predictably followed by renewed attacks out-of physical punishment. Juan Pedro try a person exactly who disdains the relationship that feeds his wife’s goals, and you can dislikes the songs and you can soap operas she adores. He or she is small, husky, scarred from places, and you can heavy away from all alcohol the guy beverages. Similar to the gender-part socialization off their youth, he requires that their partner bring delicacies eg his mommy prepared. The guy together with requires one to Cleofilas care for all the his requires and those away from their pupils instead of grievance.

Don Serafin

Wear Serafin is Cleofilas’ dad, which shared with her once the she leftover his house or apartment with their unique the fresh new partner, “I’m your own father, I’m able to never ever forget your.” Nevertheless, he delivers their particular out to “el otro lado”-the other side-which have men neither the guy neither his daughter most knows. Whilst she makes, the guy wonders in the event the she’ll in the foreseeable future desire back to their particular difficult longevity of errands having him along with her six brothers. Don Serafin shows Cleofilas that the like anywhere between parent and you may youngster is different and more powerful than the newest like ranging from a person and you may a female, a training she remembers just like the Bender in Moldova brides she talks about their own newborn young buck. Shortly after his daughter’s disastrous, unlawful relationship, to which the guy first agreed, they are there in order to desired their own along with her people family.