Ana in Of Women and Salt: Character Analysis

Overview

Ana is Gloria's daughter and one of the novel's youngest sustained voices. She first appears in 2014 as a small child in a Miami suburb, and by the final chapter she is a thirteen-year-old making a solo crossing of the Rio Grande. Her arc — from a child separated from her mother by an ICE raid, to a teenager who crosses a border alone and builds a new life with a stranger — makes her the novel's clearest illustration of how migration and displacement shape a life. Ana's story also ties together several of the book's other threads: the mother-daughter relationships that structure the narrative, the intergenerational trauma that passes between women, and the question of what children inherit from the choices adults make around them. For a full overview of the novel, see the main book page.

Plot Role

Ana enters the story through Jeanette's eyes. In 2014, after ICE agents arrest Ana's mother Gloria in the middle of the night, Ana is dropped off at her empty house by her babysitter. Jeanette, the neighbor, takes her in. Over a few days, Ana reveals details of her family's migration history — that she entered the United States hidden in a car trunk, that she had been sent back to El Salvador once before — and Jeanette ultimately calls the police, who take Ana away. That phone call becomes a hinge in the novel: it leads to Ana's detention and deportation, and years later, Carmen confesses to Ana that she encouraged Jeanette to make that call.

Ana's second major role comes in the final chapter, where she is the protagonist of her own story. After her mother's death from cancer, thirteen-year-old Ana crosses the Rio Grande with a group of migrants, travels by train to Miami, and knocks on the door of her old neighborhood. There she meets Carmen, who tells her that Jeanette died of an overdose and that Carmen bears responsibility for Ana's deportation. Ana stays, enrolls in high school, and begins working as a dishwasher. The novel ends with Carmen giving Ana a Spanish first edition of Les Misérables that belonged to Jeanette, inscribed with the words “We are more than we think we are.” For a closer look at how the novel concludes, see the ending explained page.

Motivations and Traits

Ana's defining trait is resilience born of necessity. As a child, she adapts quickly to whatever situation she is placed in — a stranger's house, a family detention center, a new country. She asks direct questions (“Is my mom dead?”) and accepts the answers she is given with a composure that reads as both innocence and survival instinct.

Her actions in the final chapter show a more deliberate kind of strength. After her mother's death, Ana makes a promise to survive and fight. She endures the crossing, hides from Border Patrol agents while other children are rounded up, and makes her way to Miami with a counted-out budget and a plan. She lies about her age to get a dishwashing job and maintains a punishing schedule of school and work. These are not passive choices; Ana is actively building a life for herself.

One of her most revealing decisions comes earlier, in Irapuato. When her mother becomes seriously ill and Nancy, the woman Gloria works for, can only pay for one doctor visit, Ana considers taking Nancy's hidden cash to pay for chemotherapy. She decides against it, fearing discovery and the loss of their home. The decision shows both her desperation and her calculation — she weighs the risk not only to herself but to the fragile stability she and her mother have built.

Chronological Arc

Ana's story is told non-chronologically, like the rest of the novel. The reader first meets her in 2014, when she is a young child, in the days after her mother's arrest. She is taken in by Jeanette, then taken by police, then reunited with Gloria in a family detention facility in Texas. Both are deported to El Salvador — or so the system intends. Instead, they are dropped off in Mexico and told to make their way to El Salvador from there. They never do.

Gloria decides to stay in Mexico, and the two settle in Irapuato. Ana struggles with the transition — she cannot write in Spanish and gets sick from the water. By 2018, she is helping her mother with her work as a maid for Nancy, observing the household and learning about privilege from Nancy's explanations. When Gloria falls seriously ill, Ana faces the moral dilemma of Nancy's hidden money and decides against taking it.

The final chapter jumps to 2019. Gloria has died of cancer. Ana, now thirteen, crosses the Rio Grande with a group of migrants, travels by train to Miami, and finds her way to her old Kendall neighborhood. Carmen takes her in. Ana enrolls in high school, works as a dishwasher, and on her fifteenth birthday receives the inscribed Les Misérables from Carmen. The novel ends with Ana holding the book and thinking that she might one day give it away to someone who reminds her of herself.

Relationships

Gloria. The central relationship in Ana's life is with her mother. Gloria chose to raise Ana after being raped by a teenage gang member, and Ana was born a month early. Their bond is tested by separation — the days Ana spends with Jeanette after Gloria's arrest, the detention, the deportation — but it holds. Ana's grief after Gloria's death is the engine of the final chapter. She has been motherless before, and the novel suggests that this second loss is both familiar and unbearable.

Jeanette. Ana's time with Jeanette lasts only a few days, but it leaves a mark. Ana remembers the neighbor's house, the laughter they shared, the way Jeanette ran her fingers through a tangle in Ana's hair. She remembers the guilt of being taken by police without a word to the woman who had cared for her. Years later, Ana thinks of trying to find Jeanette online to explain what happened. She never does. When she learns from Carmen that Jeanette died of an overdose, Ana realizes she had built a fantasy of Jeanette as a soft landing — a story that the truth complicates. Jeanette's death is part of the novel's exploration of addiction and recovery.

Carmen. Ana's relationship with Carmen is the novel's final pairing. Carmen is the woman who encouraged Jeanette to call the police on Ana, and she is also the woman who takes Ana in. Ana is suspicious of Carmen's nervous energy and her evasiveness, but she stays. The relationship is not sentimentalized — Ana was not seeking a savior and did not intend to save anyone else — but it becomes a kind of family. Carmen helps Ana enroll in school, checks in on her, and gives her the book on her fifteenth birthday.

Key Decisions and Consequences

Ana's decision not to take Nancy's money is the first major choice the novel shows her making. She considers the theft carefully, weighs the risk of discovery against the certainty of her mother's illness, and decides against it. The consequence is that Gloria does not receive long-term treatment; she dies of cancer. The novel does not present this as a moral failing — Ana is a child, and the system has failed her — but it does show the terrible arithmetic that poverty forces on children.

Her second major decision is to cross the border alone. After her mother's death, Ana has no family in Mexico and no clear path forward. She chooses to return to the United States, the country that made her and expelled her. The decision is both practical and emotional: she has no family in Mexico, and Miami is the only place that feels even slightly familiar. The consequence is that she ends up with Carmen, in the house where Jeanette once lived, building a new life.

Theme/Symbol Connections

Ana's story is the novel's most direct engagement with migration and displacement. She crosses borders three times — as a baby, as a child in a car trunk, and as a teenager on a tire. Each crossing is more dangerous than the last, and each one is undertaken because the alternative is worse.

Her relationship with Gloria connects to the novel's exploration of mother-daughter relationships. Gloria's decision to raise Ana after rape, her lie to a fellow detainee that Ana won't remember the detention, her choice to stay in Mexico rather than risk another deportation — these are all acts of maternal protection. Ana's grief is the cost of that protection.

The Les Misérables book that Carmen gives Ana is the novel's most important symbol. It connects Ana to Jeanette, to Carmen's family history in Cuba, and to the novel's opening chapters in 1866 Camagüey. The inscription — “We are more than we think we are” — is a message across time, and Ana chooses to believe it. The book also connects to the novel's treatment of intergenerational trauma: the same book that María Isabel's suitor Antonio gave her in 1866 Cuba ends up in Ana's hands in 2019 Miami.

Ana's experience with Carmen also touches on class inequality and privilege. In Irapuato, Nancy explains the concept of privilege to Ana, who observes the gap between Nancy's life and her own. In Miami, Ana works as a dishwasher while Carmen lives in a house she bought after her daughter's death. The novel does not resolve these inequalities; it simply shows Ana navigating them.

Questions and Answers

Why does Ana decide not to take Nancy's hidden money in Irapuato?

Ana considers stealing Nancy's cash to pay for her mother's chemotherapy but decides against it because she fears being discovered and losing the home she and Gloria have built. The decision is a calculation of risk: the money might save Gloria, but the theft could cost them everything.

What motivates Ana to return to the United States alone at thirteen?

After Gloria's death from cancer, Ana has no family in Mexico. She chooses to cross the Rio Grande and make her way to Miami because it is the only place that feels even slightly familiar — the place where she spent what she remembers as the happiest years of her childhood.

Why does Ana go to her old Kendall neighborhood rather than anywhere else?

Ana carries an address for her old complex and hopes to find the neighbor who took her in years earlier. She wants to thank the woman who softened the blow of her mother's detention. She also reasons that Miami is where high schools are used to girls with no parents and no social security numbers.

How does Ana's relationship with Carmen develop, and what does the Les Misérables gift signify?

Ana is initially suspicious of Carmen, who is nervous and evasive. Carmen reveals that she encouraged Jeanette to call the police on Ana, and Ana must reconcile that confession with the care Carmen shows her. The gift of the inscribed Les Misérables — a book that connects Ana to Jeanette, to Carmen's Cuban family, and to the novel's 1866 opening — signifies Ana's place in a chain of women who pass stories and strength to one another.

What does Ana's promise to her mother reveal about her character?

Before Gloria dies, Ana promises to survive and fight. The promise shows that Ana's resilience is not just temperament but commitment — a choice she makes and keeps through the crossing, the journey to Miami, and the difficult work of building a new life.

For more study questions and discussion prompts, see the questions and answers page.