Elena's parents find it shocking, but they don't comment too much, although once Elena heard the two of them in their bedroom talking about Jessica being a bad influence on her. Elena wishes her parents would give her more credit than that. She doesn't even have a boyfriend. Nor does she want one. She's a virgin and she plans to stay that way. Elena's dream is to dance on the show So Ya Think You Can Dance and then be noticed by one of the judges -- like Adam Shankman or 'Lil C. The people on that show look so happy and they get to dance to the best music and everybody respects them. When the cameras close in on the parents of these kid dancers, they look so proud. She would like her parents to look at her and be that proud. She wants to make them proud more than anything.

"You can do anything here," they say to her. "America is the land...

She has never told him that because she knows it would hurt his feelings. She loves her dad a lot. He's a good man.
Her younger sisters Ana and Beatriz are 12 and 14. Her younger brother, Pablito, is 6. She's close to all of them, but they are so much younger than her. Her sisters have someone managed to escape the curse of Van Nuys. They have white friends and they get straight As. Her little brother is too young to know anything yet. Elena doesn't feel like she belongs in the family a lot of times because everyone seems so different from her. Her mother thinks she should make more of an effort to be a part of the family. She misses her family and wishes she could be, but there is something that makes her want to feel hidden from them.