Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death, death by suicide, gender discrimination, and antigay bias.

Catalina is the title character, narrator, and protagonist of Catalina. She narrates in the first person, looking back on her senior year at Harvard from over 10 years later.

When Catalina was a baby in Ecuador, her parents died in a car accident. Thanks to some “miracle,” Catalina survived and was raised by her aunt and uncle until she was five. Then, she was sent to the United States to live with her undocumented grandparents in Queens. They insist that she is there because of better educational opportunities, but Catalina suspects an ulterior motive. With her intelligence, precociousness, and tendency to be “spared […] by unpredictable strikes of divine chance” (15), her grandparents see her as their “lottery ticket,” an opportunity to finally succeed in the United States. Although she has a tumultuous relationship with her grandparents, Catalina is fiercely protective of them. She is their advocate and jumps into action without a second thought when they are threatened, such as when her grandfather’s deportation order is issued.

In seventh grade, Catalina learned that she had overstayed her tourist visa as a child and was also undocumented.