Doña Clara entertains Sofia's family with stories from her bag and eats a tequila worm, saying it cures her homesickness.

Doña Clara arrives in a wheelchair, unable to speak, her bag empty, and Sofia's mother takes over as the family storyteller.

Sofia panics during her First Holy Communion and hides the host in her shirt pocket instead of swallowing it.

Tia Belia heals Sofia's sister Lucy after she is struck by a car by sweeping Lucy's body with a kitchen broom.

A school bully calls Sofia "Taco Head" in the cafeteria for eating her traditional bean tacos at lunch.

Sofia's school counselor tells her she has been selected for a scholarship to a prestigious Episcopal boarding school in Austin.

Sofia places the scholarship brochure on the table during sobremesa and tells her family about the opportunity.

Tia Petra wraps Sofia in a roll of plastic and gives her blessing for Sofia to pursue the scholarship.

After the quinceañera dancing, Sofia asks her mama for permission to attend St. Luke's, and mama finally says yes.

Sofia and her papa share a tequila worm together for the first time, and he promises to mail her one at school.

Sofia spends a summer sorting cucumbers during exhausting night shifts at a packing shed to earn her $400 tuition share.

Sofia's family helps her move into her St. Luke's dorm room, and her mama unpacks religious icons to build an altar.

Terry places a tequila bottle and a hateful racist note on Sofia's altar, and the entire school discovers what she did.

Sofia whispers to her gravely ill father that he can let go, and he dies shortly afterward.

Sofia returns to the old barrio as a civil rights attorney and builds a small plaza on her childhood home's lot.

The story follows Sofia from childhood in her Texas barrio, where storyteller Doña Clara plants the seed of tradition and wonder. Sofia's early experiences, including a botched First Holy Communion and racial bullying at school, shape her resilience and ambition. When a scholarship to a prestigious boarding school arrives, Sofia must win her reluctant family's blessings one by one before she can accept. She works a grueling summer job to pay her share of the tuition and arrives at St. Luke's with her culture on full display, only to face overt racism from a classmate. The greatest loss of her life, her father's death, tests everything she has learned about love, grief, and perseverance. In the end, Sofia comes full circle, using her success to give back to the barrio community that shaped her.

The key milestones of Sofia's journey from barrio to boarding school and beyond.

Sofia's mama gives her permission to take a huge bite of Berta's chocolate, and Berta retaliates by biting Sofia's shoulder.

Sofia confesses to her mama about hiding the communion host, and they visit the priest to pray the Stations of the Cross.

Sofia's old shirt is mysteriously returned by mail with the pocket that held the communion host sewn completely shut.

Sofia's papa spreads newspaper on the porch and teaches Sofia and Lucy to decorate Easter cascarones on Good Friday.

At Falcon Dam on Easter, Sofia's flour-filled cascarone and Lucy's raw-egg cascarone both smash directly onto Berta.

Sofia's papa drives her to the barrio cemetery on Halloween night to show her the richness of their community's celebrations.

Coach Clarke tells Sofia the best way to fight back against bullies is to beat them in school and sports.

Marcos, another student from Sofia's barrio, is chosen alongside Sofia to take the all-day boarding school scholarship tests.

A representative from St. Luke's visits Sofia's home and shows the whole family a slideshow of the boarding school.

Sofia and her papa clean beans together on Tuesday, and papa quietly gives his blessing for her to attend St. Luke's.

At the drive-in theater, Sofia realizes Berta has grown up, and Berta reveals she now has her first boyfriend.

Sofia serves as Berta's dama de honor and dances polkas and waltzes with Berta's brother at the quinceañera.

Berta transforms a white bedsheet, neckties, and a bathrobe from a secondhand store into five elegant dresses for Sofia.

Sofia's papa mails her a tiny mescal bottle containing the tequila worm he had promised to send to school.

After applying to three prestigious universities, Sofia receives acceptance letters from Harvard, Yale, and Princeton.

Beyond the headline milestones, Sofia's story is built from vivid moments of family life in the barrio. From the chocolate-biting standoff with Berta to a Halloween visit to the candlelit cemetery, Sofia's world is steeped in humor, ritual, and hard-won wisdom. As the boarding school opportunity takes shape, the details of preparation reveal the community's extraordinary creativity and resilience, especially Berta's feat of sewing five elegant dresses from thrift-store scraps. Sofia also navigates smaller but meaningful transitions, from her papa quietly giving his blessing over a pot of pinto beans to Berta's startling announcement of a boyfriend at the drive-in. The section closes with the quiet triumph of three Ivy League acceptance letters, earned through years of perseverance, though the deeper rewards of Sofia's journey have always lived in the people around her.

The everyday traditions, family moments, and school preparations that give Sofia's world its richness.

Before her own First Holy Communion, Sofia and her cousins secretly play the ritual using Necco wafers as hosts.

Sofia visits her mama's sick comadre Doña Virginia and learns the spiritual meaning of each item on her home altar.

After Coach Clarke's encouragement, Sofia and her friends begin eating their Mexican lunches openly and proudly in the cafeteria.

Sofia tells Berta about the scholarship offer, but Berta scoffs and insists that women cannot become lawyers.

During sobremesa, Lucy declares she wants to go to boarding school with Sofia, leaving Sofia feeling suddenly and unexpectedly alone.

After Tia Petra's blessing, Berta shocks the whole family by declaring she is proud of Sofia for the very first time.

Papa uses the story of Sofia's hidden communion host to teach her how to persuade Mama to support the scholarship.

Berta asks Sofia to be her dama de honor and advises that acting mature in the role will help convince their mama.

Sofia's mama sees her daughter dressed in a floor-length quinceañera gown and tells her she looks grown-up and beautiful.

A man at the packing shed proposes marriage to Sofia, and she finally understands why the women workers dress up.

Sofia, Berta, and Lucy drive around during the sweltering summer canicula and officially agree to be each other's comadres.

Brooke refuses Terry's demand to switch rooms and welcomes Sofia warmly, choosing Sofia's friendship over Terry's.

Tia Petra names Sofia the Christmas madrina and says the honor is about learning to kick with her soul.

After returning to school following her father's funeral, Sofia opens the secret cascarone and finds three carved saints and a note.

Sofia takes up Doña Clara's burlap storytelling bag at the family gathering and passes the secret cascarone around the room.

Sofia's growth is marked not only by big events but by the moments that quietly shift how she sees herself and her world. From watching cousins mock a sacred ritual to learning the meaning of her community's altar traditions, Sofia slowly builds the wisdom to navigate two very different worlds. Key turning points, including Berta's surprising declaration of pride, her father's lesson about persuasion, and her mother's acknowledgment that she has grown up, give Sofia the courage she needs to leave home. At boarding school, Brooke's quiet loyalty and Sofia's appointment as Christmas madrina teach her that cultural identity is something carried inside, not left behind. Her father's death and the contents of his secret cascarone bring his final message to life, and Sofia's return to the storyteller's role closes the circle of her journey.

The quiet revelations, bold decisions, and emotional shifts that define Sofia's coming of age.